


I've Been Ignored by Prettier Women Than You

by fionnabhair



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-06-26 14:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fionnabhair/pseuds/fionnabhair
Summary: Dan has no intention of walking away - which Amy would know, if she'd talk to him.Season 7 fic.





	1. Chapter One

Amy doesn’t answer her phone.

He’s stuck in a crappy Omaha hotel bar with Leon and Kent and Ben, and Amy refuses to answer his calls.

He doesn’t know her room number, and he’s not quite willing to harass Gary until he gets it, so he contents himself with blasting up her phone.

Sooner or later she’s going to crack, he’s sure of it.

He’s still sure of it when it’s gone midnight and he has to go to bed - she’s probably just asleep, probably needs more sleep now that she’s… that she’s pregnant.

He can’t even picture it, Amy all round and motherly, it seems like something out of science fiction.But the kid… the kid he _can_ see - a little boy with Amy’s stormy temper and wide eyes, or a girl with her big ears and his freckles - he can already picture one or both of them on a campaign leaflet.

He finally accepts that she’s not going to answer her phone around one a.m. and tries to sleep himself. 

It doesn’t really work.

His mind is racing, idea tumbling over idea in a rush he can barely keep up with.It makes sense, suddenly, why Amy had seemed to drop off the face of the earth not too long after she’d come to DC for her interview, why she’d started taking days to reply to messages.It makes sense, the way she’s been oddly standoffish ever since BKD took on Selina’s campaign - looking at him all the time like she _wanted_ to come closer but couldn’t.Why that tension in her, the tension that he’d thought was gone, maybe forever, when he’d seen her smile that day in DC, had crept back in, inch by irritating inch.

He doesn’t get much sleep.

He does raid the mini-bar and drink three of the less mediocre mini-bottles of Scotch, but it doesn’t help much.

The next morning, they have a breakfast meeting with Selina - Kent’s taking them through his proposals for demographic targeting in Iowa, and Amy’s filling Selina in on her plans for the new campaign office - so he gets up early and grabs a seat, figuring he can catch her before the others arrive.

It’s a good idea, in theory - and Amy shows up exactly as he expects… but that’s the limits of his success.

She smiles at the waitress, orders pancakes with blueberries and pannacotta and something called a watermelon cooler.The moment they’re alone, he says, “Amy, what the -”

“I can’t talk right now.”

“ _You_ can’t - well you’re gonna.”

“No, Dan,” she says, sounding irritatingly serene.“I’m not.”

“So what, you’re just going to sit there and eat sugar and read your phone?”

“When you put it like that,” she says, “It sounds like a really good plan.”

“Amy for -”

They’re interrupted by Gary, who has come down to place Selina’s order and have a mild panic attack, it’s not clear in which order.He’s het up about something to do with the leviathan, some kind of herbal remedy Selina used up the night before, and which he’s afraid he can’t replace in flyover country.

He’s so wound up, he doesn’t seem to find it in the least bit suspicious when Amy…expresses interest, asks questions even, pretends to give a single solitary fuck about the whole thing. 

Finally, tiring of the pretence - and given an excuse by the hustle and bustle of Selina and Ben’s arrivals, Dan gets up and takes the seat beside Amy.She gives a deep sigh, and shifts so she’s facing away from him. 

But he’s not in the mood to indulge her, and so he takes her elbow in one hand, none-to-gently urging her to turn and face him.If anything, she looks _bored_.

“I’m really not in the mood,” she says, her voice low (because she doesn’t want anyone else to hear).

“Did you not see how many times I called you?”

“Oh,” she says, not looking him in the eye.“I saw.”

“Well then why -”

“I was ignoring you.” 

“You were - Amy, we have to _talk_.”

“No,” she says, with a transparently false expression of surprise on her face.“We don’t.I can’t imagine what you even think we need to talk about.”

“You’re acting like a fucking child, you know that?”

She shrugs, and reaches over to steal some of Gary’s maple syrup.“So?” 

“You can’t just -”

“Let’s get this straight,” she says, “I can do whatever I want, and you don’t get a say in the matter.I can run off to… to -”

“Nevada?”

“I was going to say Namibia,” she says, looking ruffled for the first time in the conversation.“Like Angelina Jolie or whoever -”

“If you’re modelling yourself on Angelina Jolie then you’ve got a lot to -”

“Is this the part where you tell me how terminally unsexy and boring I am?”She cocks an eyebrow at him, and he feels wrong-footed, because…well, okay, yes, he had been planning to say something to that effect - as a _joke_ \- but… “Not interested, Dan.And we have a meeting.”

And that seems to be it. 

It’s not that he can’t get her alone, because he does manage it once or twice over the course of the day, it’s that Amy refuses to give him anything, won’t be drawn into any discussion or rise to his bait, no matter how hard he tries.

It lasts for about a week. 

They’re in the Des Moines office, catching up on the day’s news, when it happens.CBS This Morning is playing on one of the big screens, though none of them are watching it, scanning twitter and their email alerts instead, discussing whether there’s anything to be gained by issuing a statement on Montez’s latest mistake.Until…

“No!”Amy sounds _furious_ , and it takes him a moment to realise why.Buddy Calhoun is being interviewed by Jane McCabe, which, it’s not like Dan can’t appreciate the irony… 

But Amy apparently can’t, because as she increases the volume on the interview, she keeps talking. 

"No, no, no!He does not get to - he doesn’t get to…he is not the -”

Buddy’s talking about relaunching his political career, how he’s learned from the humiliation of his gubernatorial campaign, how he thinks he can be a useful voice for change, for helping men to understand just what they want out of relationships, how they should never commit to someone who doesn’t respect them and their desires and their needs and their wants…

On and on and on it goes, and Dan’s not sure who’s more relieved, him or Amy, when Jane finally brings the interview to a close (it must be a slow news day, otherwise they’d never let him talk for so long).Amy all but throws the remote at the tv, and turns away from them, hugging herself.

“Well,” Selina says, “That should fuck things up nicely for the next few days.”

“I’m sorry ma’am,” Amy says, “I didn’t think he would -”

“Drag your name through the mud so he’d get a chance to go on tv?Why ever not?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “I thought he was really finished with all of - it’s not _fair_.”

“Jesus fuck,” Selina says, staring at Amy.“Are you _crying_?”

A profound and awkward silence falls, no one in the room quite knowing where to look, as Amy turns to face them.“I’m sorry,” she says, “It’s just… I can’t - I can’t stop.It’s not enough that he made me look like a…once, he has to come back and ruin everything all over again and -”

Selina can’t quite hide her expression of distaste, but she gestures at Gary to get Amy a tissue or something.“You didn’t even cry when we lost the primaries the first time, Ame, what are you, pregnant or something?”

She asked the question expecting to be contradicted, Dan can tell, expecting Amy to laugh and deny that such a thing was even possible.

But when Amy meets her eyes, looking impossibly nervous, Selina realises the truth, and her tone turns…almost sincere.“Amy,” she says, “Seriously?Right before we go into a campaign?”

“It wasn’t exactly…something I planned.”

“Well who’s the… tell me you are dragging someone else into this hell with you, because believe me girlie, you do _not_ want to do this by yourself?”

“He’s not in…”Amy swallows, hard, and squares her shoulders.“The father’s not in the picture.”

“Is it that stale lump of cottage cheese?Is that why you’re so upset?Because, Ame, if you let him touch you, after what he did to you, then… I’m not sure I trust you to -”

“It’s not him.”

“Well thank fuck for that!” Selina sounds genuinely pleased.“Sure, you’re pregnant at a terrible time, and you probably feel like an immense hormone bomb, but you didn’t let your shithead ex knock you up.Remember when I got pregnant?You think I wasn’t doing the dance of joy that it wasn’t Andrew’s?It’s something to celebrate!”

“Yes ma’am, it is.”

Amy must take too long to respond, or maybe her face gives her away, because Selina looks between her and Dan, an unexpectedly shrewd look in her eyes.

He can actually _see_ Amy tensing up as Selina figures it out, and because he’s looking at Amy, he’s not prepared when Selina rounds on him.“Dan, _you_ did this?”

More than anything it’s Amy’s agonised expression that makes the decision for him - he’s not going to flop around like some dying fish, as though he’s uncomfortable or embarrassed at what’s happened.

“Ma’am,” he says, “I wasn't expecting that I’d need to discuss it with you this soon, but yes.And while we still have a lot to work out, I’m…looking forward to it.”

Okay, no, he isn’t, not in the slightest, shitty diapers and late night crying don’t sound the least bit appealing, but… he has to say something.

“You’re looking forward to it, despite the fact that you’re ‘not in the picture’?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Amy says, “He’s just waiting for -”

“For what?” Dan says, cocking his head to look at her.(He’s genuinely curious what she thinks he’s going to do).

“There’s no reason anyone needs to know who the sperm donor is.”

“Yeah, I have questions about that,” Selina says, “You were supposed to be Catherine’s donor back in the day and then it turned out your boys didn’t swim, I remember her warbling about it at some point, so how did this even happen?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Amy says, (and the pissed-off tone in her voice is pretty enlightening, because okay, he gets it, she thinks he lied to her).

“I guess we have a medical miracle on our hands.”

“Miracle?” Selina has a dangerous tone in her voice.“Fucked up a perfectly good campaign manager is what you did.Look at her, she’s got incontinence of the eyes.You _broke_ her, right when I need her to be vaguely functional.”

“Ma’am, it’s fine, I’ll be fine -”

“Except when your millipede ex-fiance is on tv, at which point you become a weeping mess.At least your cervix is competent, unlike Catherine's.”

“I _promise_ this will not affect you, or the campaign, I swear to -”

“Fucking relax, Ame.I’m not going to fire you, we’ll sort it out.”The way Amy’s body _sags_ with relief, he can tell she was genuinely worried, which… he could have _told_ her she was safe, if she’d only talked to him.“Though if Dan’s the daddy, no wonder you look like you want to drink a bottle of draino.Jesus, I thought literally the last thing you ever wanted was to end up like your fucking sister.”

“I’m not gonna - that’s not going to happen.” 

There are angry tears in Amy’s eyes, but Selina doesn’t seem to notice them.“Well, you got knocked up by a better class of deadbeat, I’ll say that for you.What was it, a delivery guy, and someone so incompetent they discharged him from the _army_?” 

“He was her college boyfriend,” Amy says, looking irritated.“Anyway, it’s not the same, I’m not going to -”

“And I’m not a fucking deadbeat!”

“Sure Dan,” Selina says, “Now can we sit down and get to work?”

And for the rest of the day, Amy refuses to so much as glance in his general direction.


	2. Chapter Two

Irritated by Amy’s persistent blanking of him, Dan decides to blank her right back. 

After a day or so, he has to admire her willpower, because completely ignoring someone while interacting with them all day long and being polite takes more social…work than he’d anticipated.And what’s even worse is, it doesn’t work.

If Amy at least had the decency to _notice_ that he was freezing her out, that would be one thing, but it never seems to strike her that he’s being taciturn and stubborn on _purpose_.

And then they go to Iowa.

Fucking Iowa.

The only possible reason Dan can think of for living there is an unexamined fetish for corn, but whatever, it’s not his business what people choose to insert into their orifices or how (though he bets the Des Moines Emergency Room nurses have some stories to tell).

Selina’s managed to magic up a private jet - somehow - which they plan to use on this early stage of the campaign (eventually, if things go well, they’ll need a bigger one, with room for a press pack, but it’s good for now).

It’s a three hour flight, which gives them time to discuss plans for the next week - or it would have, if Amy hadn’t spent the best part of an hour in the bathroom.(Fortunately the noise of the flight was more than loud enough to cover whatever she was doing in there).

He’d expected Selina to lose her shit, but she just rolled her eyes and told Gary to make sure the plane stocked up on ginger-snap cookies before their next flight, before starting a discussion about how they can best use Catherine and Little Richard (and how far away from Selina they can be when they’re used) in the campaign.

When Amy finally comes out, she looks worse than he’s ever seen her, pale and drawn and sweaty, with deep dark shadows under her eyes and the kind of posture that suggests she can barely hold herself up.

She slumps into a seat beside Ben and barely even smiles when he jokes about the Meyer campaign literally puking on all the fly-over states. 

She closes her eyes as Kent walks them through the day’s schedule, only showing signs of life when he says they’re considering cutting the visit to the local Buddhist temple, the Buddhist population of Iowa not being of statistical significance. 

“Are you high?Freeing Tibet is the biggest foreign policy success since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we want to remind people of it at every possible opportunity.Plus, that’s a guaranteed audience who will actually like us.”

“See Ame,” Selina says, “That’s why I keep you round, because you say things like that.”

“Always glad to help, ma’am.”

Point made, Amy slumps back against her seat, and if he didn’t know better, Dan would swear she was sleeping.

No one else seems fazed by any of this, but it makes him…uncomfortable, even if he has no intention of showing it.In the whole time he’d known her, the only time Amy had been ill enough to let it affect her work was when she came down with a flu that had laid waste to half the West Wing and two thirds of the Senate (and even then she’d still come into work, for all she could barely hold her head up).

But it’s when they land that things take a turn for the worse.Amy had dragged herself out of her chair, not quite groaning as she did so (but looking as though she very much wanted to), and was making for the exit when Leon said, “You sure you don’t want to let Dan go down first?”

“What?”

“You know, in case his hand…slips.”

“For fuck sake,” Dan starts, but doesn’t finish, because he’s interrupted by Gary saying, “Oh, like in Downton Abbey?”

“I have no idea what you’re -”

“O’Brien one of the maids, arranges for her employer to slip and fall,” Kent says, “It was part of her ongoing feud with Bates.”Amy’s blank face must prompt him to continue, because he adds, “She thought she was going to be fired, so she…arranged for a miscarriage.”

“Oh.”

“I thought you would know,” Kent says, “Didn’t you watch Downton Abbey with -”

“I…forgot about that part,” Amy says, “Okay?”

“Well, I wouldn’t advise that you go out of your way to revisit an episode with a miscarriage, not at this time.”

“Thanks Kent,” she says, “Anyone else thought of creative ways Dan could dispose of me?”

“In ‘A Place in the Sun’ Montgomery Clift drowns his pregnant girlfriend, but that was so he could be with Elizabeth Taylor, so…”

“Shut the fuck up Gary!”He can’t help it, it just comes out, because… well he doesn’t know if it’s the conversation or how clearly not funny Amy finds it or Gary’s creepy assumption that anything was justified for a shot at Elizabeth Taylor (Dan’s not touching that one with a barge pole). 

“Are you getting upset, Danny?”

“You’re all sick in the head,” he says, “Now can we go?”

“Sorry,” Leon says, “Didn’t realise it was a sore point.”

“Whatever, jesus christ,” Dan says, and starts to usher Amy up the aisle towards the exit, and trying to take her carry-on from her as she does so (she fights him on this, naturally).

But when they reach the door, she stops and gives him a pointed look - he’s to go in front, apparently.

“You’re kidding me.”

“Just…”

“You really think I’m going to attempt to fucking murder you?”

“I’m sure that wouldn’t be the plan, but…”

“But?”

“We both know it wouldn’t really bother you if -”

“Just give me your damn bag,” he says, yanking it out of her hands, and making his way down the stairs. 

He’s not sure who he’s more pissed at - Amy or Leon or Gary - but he does know he wants nothing more than to stop talking about this, and get back to work.At least there the murders are only metaphorical.

But it turns out to have been the right choice, for him to go down the stairs ahead of Amy, because…maybe it was the heat, or the light, or who knew what, but two steps from the bottom, she stumbles or something, falling into his back.

He’s not entirely sure what’s happened, is the truth, until he hears Selina saying, “She’s only gone and fucking fainted” behind him.

He throws the bags aside, and shifts so he can get his hands on Amy, hold her up.It’s awkward as fuck - more because the angle is bad than because of her weight, but still…and he can’t twist enough to catch her properly - and it takes Kent coming to help him, before he feels like he’s really got her.

When they’re finally off the steps, he turns to look at her properly.Her eyes are fluttering open, and (he’s amused to note) her grip on her phone hasn’t slackened in the least.“What…happened-”

“I don’t fucking know,” he says, sounding more angry than he probably should, “But you are seeing a goddamn _doctor_.”

And so they have a fight about that, or at least…they have a fight about that until Ben reminds them that Selina’s first stop is at a Mother and Baby clinic, so maybe, if they stop fighting on the runway, and get in the goddamn car, they can sort this out on the way.

(Amy gives in, eventually, when Selina points out that publicly asking if one of the doctors will see her campaign manager will make her look really sweet and caring and all that jazz).

That’s how they end up in a white room, sniping at each other while they wait for the doctor.

He’s not sure which irritates him more - Amy’s insistence on pacing up and down the ludicrously tiny room, or the fact that she bats away every single one of his _completely reasonable_ questions.(Like, has this happened before? Has she been keeling over on the semi-regular and just didn’t  say anything?)

He starts when Amy tells the doctor that she’s fifteen weeks pregnant, because he’s pretty sure that they slept together in…

Amy just rolls her eyes and says, “It’s counted from when I had my last period, _idiot._ And you can just go.”

In truth, the doctor doesn’t keep Amy long.Apparently it was just dehydration (caused by all the vomiting), and Amy’s free to go.The doctor _also_ says that she should consider drinking soda water or something if it happens again, because she’s not just loosing water, she’s also loosing salts, and that’s what causes the damage.

It’s all a buzzing in Dan’s ear, and what he mostly takes from the conversation is that if Amy finds herself craving a cheeseburger, or a pretzel, or whatever else, then she should have one, and not try to stick to some messed up low-carb, no-fat, low-protein diet. 

Amy rolls her eyes at this, but thanks the doctor for taking the time to check her over, and then sails out, pointedly ignoring Dan as she goes.

He’d like to think it was progress, but he knows better.For the next few weeks she tolerates him insisting that she stop and eat more - though, from a couple of comments she drops about how her figure will be ruined, he sometimes gets the feeling that she’s eating the fried chicken (or waffles with cream) (or macaroni and cheese) _at_ him.

It doesn’t stop them working together - better than ever in fact - and that makes things _worse_.When they’re caught up in the high of having taken control of a news cycle or wrangled an endorsement from an especially awkward super-delegate, it’s almost like how it was before, back when _he_ was Amy’s first call, her first text, the person she would run to with good news or to bitch about the collection of goons that had ruined her day.

But he hasn’t been that for a long, _long_ time.

And he doesn’t know who the fuck she’s talking to, because every time it happens, every time he opens his mouth to suggest they get a drink (though, probably, Amy can’t drink right now, he supposes) or a late-night bite to eat or even just watch the news together… well, every time, she pre-empts him, and leaves to… to do he doesn’t know what, because she won’t _tell_ him.

This wasn’t how he thought things would be when Amy came to work for BKD.

Missing her when she was in Nevada was one thing, but this… this is harder.

They have to make a stop in New York - so Selina can be presented with an award and pose for the press - and that’s when Amy just…doesn’t show up for work one morning.

And of course, of course she doesn’t answer her phone, at least not when he calls her. 

It’s not that he’s worried - he’s not, Amy can handle herself, can handle herself _and_ Selina Meyer, which is more than most highly trained Marines can manage - but…

When Selina mentions, off-hand, that Amy still isn’t back from her doctor’s appointment, he’s both relieved and furious.

Which is why he _lurks_ in the lobby.He’s supposed to be helping Leon draft Selina’s remarks for the event that evening, but one, he can do that later (he could do it blindfolded if need be), and two, Leon irritates the hell out of him.

When Amy strolls in at ten-thirty-five, he pounces, taking her by the elbow and pulling her into a private corner.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a doctor’s appointment?”

She looks, pointedly, at his hand on her arm, and he backs off just a little.

“Because it’s none of your goddamn business, that’s why.”

“Amy,” he says, “We’re both in this, and you know it.It’s not like you got _yourself_ pregnant.”

“Maybe I did,” she says, lifting her chin, “Maybe I just used a donor.Who knows?If I don’t put your name on the birth certificate, how would anyone know?”

“Because I’ll get a blood test done, that’s how.”

She stares up at him, bemused, and lets out a little laugh.“We both know you won’t.Stop pretending to give a shit - you’re not convincing _anyone_.”

“You can’t just cut me out like I’m -”

“Yeah, I can,” Amy says, “And I will.Despite what you might think, I have _no_ interest in raising a daughter with more Daddy-Issues than Selina.”

“What?”

Amy bites her lip, looking as though she wishes she hadn’t spoken.

“That’s what the appointment was?You were finding out the sex?”

“Yeah,” she says, looking at the floor.“It’s a girl.Big whoop.You can begin your fucked-up scheming now.”

“Kid’s gonna rule the world someday.”

“Whatever,” Amy says, and then raises her head to look at him, briefly, before fixing her gaze over his shoulder.“She’s not going to understand… she’s not going to get that there will _never_ be anything more important to you than an opportunity to fuck yourself into the spotlight.And in case you haven’t noticed, spending a life time wondering ‘why didn’t Daddy love me?’ doesn’t exactly set someone up for success.”

“Selina was President - it doesn’t get more -”

“You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about,” Amy says, and for half a second, he thinks she might cry.“Better she not have one than some douchebag part-time when it’s convenient for him - no, when it’s useful for him father.”

“Oh, because _you’re_ going to be Mom of the year?”

“You know what,” Amy says, “No, I won’t be.I’ll probably be shitty, I’ll probably fuck her up in my own unique way, but at least I will _be_ there.At least I’ll understand that she’s a person, and not just ‘an opportunity to change the narrative.’”

“Oh please, like you’re not going to use this fuck-up for the benefit of the campaign.”

“She’s not a fuck-up!”

Amy raises her voice in anger, and he sees the security guard give them a once-over, checking nothing is going on (why do they _always_ end up in these situations?) 

When she continues, she’s quieter, but her tone is still fierce.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t _want_ to.You think I didn’t know how you’d react, you think I didn’t know this is the last thing you would ever want?I thought about _all_ the options, and you better believe that that is a _shitty_ thing to have do completely alone.But it’s not like I could call you, not like you would ever… So, stop blasting up my phone, stop fucking manhandling me whenever you’re pissed off, and stop trying to trick me into thinking you will ever be anything more than a sperm donor.I made the decision with my eyes open - I know what you are.   Now do me a favour, and fuck off the way we both know you want to.”

She walks away, already checking her phone, and she doesn’t look back once.He knows, because he watches her go.


	3. Chapter Three

There’s an edgy truce.

There’s a Danny Chung has just announced his candidacy and that means all hands are required very much on deck truce.

Dan’s been planning a nuclear strike against him ever since Chung was stupid enough to reveal his weakness in a simple introductory meeting, but it’s not as easy as he'd hoped.

They have to track down the man with half a face, convince him that spending his time stalking trainee opera singers is creepy, and find a friendly journalist willing to run the story.

It’s a delicate business. 

None of them are particularly adept at…empathising with people, let alone getting them to spill their deepest, darkest secrets to the world’s press and the hobgoblins of the internet.

Ultimately they get Leon to do it - he’s a creep and a half, but he has a way with people, odd as it might seem.He’s relentlessly obnoxious to everyone on the team - Amy in particular, Dan’s noticed - but when dealing with civilians, people he considers actual human beings, he adopts a paternal attitude that might be charming on someone without the unfortunate moustache.

In the meantime, Amy’s the one negotiating with the _New Yorker_ journalist - between her big blue eyes and burgeoning pregnancy bump, she seems almost wholesome… and her very abrasiveness seems to set the journalist at ease, convincing him that she’s sincere.

Once the wheels are in motion, they have nothing to do but wait, and Dan comes in one day planning to run a war room, giving them an opportunity to game out possible responses to the Chung story, depending on the angle the press take.

Keeping his colleagues focused can be challenging even at the best of times, so he brings in a box of donuts, reasoning that that will keep them gathered around the conference table if nothing else will.(And if he makes sure to include some salted caramel custard ones because he knows Amy likes them, well...that's his business).

Ben arrives first, sitting down and watching him fiddle with the computer display cables with a complete lack of sympathy - though he laughs when Dan has to climb under the table to sort the connections out.

He's still under there when Amy comes in, which is useful.She's in some kind of flurry, he can tell, and he wants to hug Ben when he says, "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah, I...it's nothing."

"Okay."

Ben doesn't say anything else, but the pressure of his silence must get to her, because a moment later, Amy continues."I ran into Buddy.Or, I didn't 'run into' him, that would only happen by accident, he was...waiting for me downstairs, in the lobby."

"Begging you to take him back, was he?"  


"No," Amy says, though she sounds unsure, "It didn't get to that, I got away before he could -"

"Got away?"

"I didn't feel like another long discussion about what a failure of a fiancée I was," she says, sounding irritated, "So I ran.I wish he would just go away forever."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Ben says, and chuckles."Men are _horrible_ , as Selina loves to remind us."

"Well, she's right," Amy says, her tone sharp.

"You would know."

There's a long pause, and Dan considers whether he should come out from under the table, because his leg is starting to cramp, but then Ben continues, "Speaking of which -"

"I'm not getting into this," Amy says.

"Into what?"

She heaves a deep sigh, and without being able to see her, Dan can picture the expression on her face."Dan.I'm not talking about it."

"You're the one who said his name."

"Because I know what you're going to say."

"Well then," Ben says, "fill me in."  


"I can tell from how you all look at me."  


"Oh really?If you've turned into a mindreader, that's something we could use."  


"You all think I'm shutting him out just to be a bitch or something, but -"

"Of course we do - but it's not like he doesn't deserve it."

"Damn right he does."

"Was the sex _that_ terrible?"

There's a long moment, and he's going to take a wild guess that Amy blushes, but all she says is, "It's not about that, it’s… I am not signing up for him to stomp all over me, _again_."

"Kid, you gotta get over the thing with your sister.It's not like he knew you were blasting up his phone wanting him to come over that same night."

"Don't... _talk_ about that," Amy says, "Please, all right, he doesn't know about it and he's not _going_ to know, ever, I don't want him to - you have no idea how _horrible_ he can be, none, but I do, and I had to hear about it, over and over again, from him and from Sophie, how fucking _funny_ it was, how great the sex was, how pathetic I was for ever even thinking that he... I am not doing that again. I can't... I can't... I can't stand it, he made me _miserable_.And it’s not like it would have made a difference if he _had_ known.”

"Kid."

" _Fucking_ hormones," Amy says, her voice sounding thick with tears, "I didn't even cry then, I don't know why I have to cry about it all now.I should be used to Dan making me feel shitty all the time, it's not like it's new."

She sniffs, and Ben says, "Have a donut.No one can feel sorry for themselves when they're eating a donut, it's science."

"I like the caramel ones," Amy says, sounding exhausted.

"What a coincidence," Ben says, clearly knowing it isn't any such thing. "There's about six of them in there."

There's a long pause, presumably because Amy's chewing, and then Ben continues, "Have you any idea how hilarious it was to see Dan Egan _pining_?He spent like a month whining about how long it was taking you to make up your mind and come join us in DC, Kent and I started to keep a tally of how many times we heard your name each day.You think he’d turn all lovestruck for anyone else?”  


“I don’t know.After we…I thought maybe things would be different, but let’s face it - every other time I thought maybe he…well, I’ve never been right.Not one single time, so…”

“Literally the day after he told me was in, he started talking us into his whole plan to bring you back to D.C.He's a fucking child, but he knows what he wants.”

“For now.” Amy says, still sounding tearful."He won't stop texting me either.He still hasn't -“

“And you don’t _want_ him to stop, not really.”

“Maybe not, but…it's like every day he has to poke at me about something, like I'm just going to forget everything about him and let him..."

"Let him what?"

"I don't know.Let him pose with the kid so the whole world doesn't think he's a deadbeat Dad or whatever."  


"You don’t think he wants the kid and not you?"  


"I don't fucking know Ben - and it doesn't matter _what_ he wants, because even if he _did_ want me or the kid, he'd only change his mind like two minutes later, and I'd be left..."She pauses, and then, sounding angry, says, "I always thought that if I was going to do this it would be with someone who... who would be _happy_ about it, who would be _glad_... and I had to tell him and _know_ he probably wanted to drag me off to the nearest Planned Parenthood the second I gave him a chance."

"Whereas if you hold him at arm's length for the rest of your life things will be fucking dandy?Kid, I don't know how you haven't noticed this, but you're miserable _now_.And so is he, even if he is almost as robotic as Kent."

"Well, I'm sure he'll find some idiot intern to make him feel better - she'll probably even be stupid enough to think he actually _likes_ her."Amy stands then, saying, "Thanks for the donut.I'm going to go...fix my face."

"Good luck with that."

When Dan crawls out from under the table, he's not sure whether to start a fight with Ben or not, but the older man just looks at his phone, saying, "You can thank me later."

"For what?"

"For getting her to talk, jesus christ.You think it matters to me if you two ever get your shit together?I couldn't give a single soggy shit, but neither of you is any good to me if you're so busy glaring at each other you can't get anything done.Not to mention that Kent found her crying in the stairwell yesterday."

"How is that _my_ fault, I never even spoke to her?"

"That's the point _dipshit_.Have you considered talking to her, finding out what she's _feeling_ , instead of yelling at her at every opportunity?She doesn't even want to tell her parents that you're the daddy, _that's_ how much of a shit you've been, and you still think _you're_ the one getting the raw deal."

"I'm going to fix it."

"Well get on with it," Ben says, "Ideally _before_ the kid is born instead of after, because at some point…people will start talking.”

When Amy comes back she doesn’t really look at him, taking a seat at the far end of the table (and another donut, he’s amused to note). 

She didn’t _look_ miserable. 

She’d started to round out, just a little, her figure more voluptuous, her face blooming with what seemed to be good health.

But then she hadn’t _seemed_ miserable before either.

Sure, she’d been pissed with him, and sure she’d been less…social, focused on work in a way that stood out even for _Amy_ , but she’d been fine. 

And sure, he’d joked about sleeping with her sister a few times, but it wasn’t like… Amy was tough, she could take it.

Except she couldn’t, apparently.Except she’d rather go running off to Nevada with some creep in a stetson than see him any more.Except that more than two years later the thought of him and Sophie still got to her.

Which made sense, he supposed, if she’d tried to make a move or something that night and felt like… (he can’t understand how _Ben_ could know about that and he didn’t, but whatever, it wasn’t important).She’s a better actress than he thinks if she could keep all of that under wraps. 

He’d always felt kind of smug that Amy wasn’t able to hide anything from him, that he could read all her feelings, all the discomfort and anger and arousal and affection she felt at any given moment, right off her face.She was an open book…

Except for when she wasn’t, apparently.

If he’d known she would take the whole thing Sophie so much to heart that she’d blank him for more than a year he… well, he’d have done something about it sooner.(He’d texted her the day after the Inauguration, wanting to tell her about CBS, wanting to hear about her next steps… and he’d texted her again the next day, and the day after that, and the week after that…and then he’d stopped because fuck her, she’d come crawling back eventually).

Not that he’d said that when she came to New York, no, he’d learned enough to keep his mouth shut on that point.(He’d only thought it).Besides, even he could see that she wasn’t herself. 

Amy wasn’t what he’d call exuberant exactly, but she’d always been determined to take up her rightful space, insisting on being noticed and carrying her point, even if it pissed off everyone around her. 

After she came back from Nevada… she just wasn’t the same - she was…subdued.Like all the fight had been knocked out of her.There’d been this…quietness that he didn’t like.Similar to how she’d been after Sophie, only…more so.

He hadn’t wanted to make it worse - he wanted her to yell at him and laugh at him and blush when he teased her and argue with him - so he stayed the fuck off the subject of her engagement or Nevada or anything to do with she’d come to New York all of a sudden.

At least now that she was pregnant she was telling him to go to hell again.That had to be an improvement.

They’re able to time the Danny Chung story perfectly - Selina is out of the country, receiving an award from some Swiss peace-making charity, and he, Amy and Kent camp out in the BKD offices, ready to run interference on any press questions.

For some technical reason to do with the _New Yorker_ website, the story doesn’t break until close to nine in the evening (which kind of works for them, actually, it means extracts of Selina’s speech have already hit the web and gone viral long before people start throwing around Danny Chung’s name).

They’d been waiting so long, Amy had nodded off on the sofa, twisted so she could lean her head on the cushions. 

The story had broken in exactly the way they’d hoped, and he and Kent take a few minutes to enjoy all the terrible headlines.Fortunately, the journalist hadn’t mentioned the Meyer campaign except in passing, and so they agree that there’s no need to be on high alert - though even if Selina were asked to give a statement, she would take the high ground, of course.

Kent wishes him good night and observes that Amy shouldn’t sleep in that position, she’ll get a crick in her neck or something.

Which means he’s the one who has to wake her. 

She wakes easier than he’d expected, and there’s something in her eyes that throws him.But all he does is offer her the iPad and give her the opportunity to review the Chung stories.

Amy bends her head and reads them, congratulating him on his strike going to plan, but there’s this quarter-smile hovering round her mouth, and finally he says, “What is it?I know it’s not just Chung.”

“Nothing,” she says, “It’s nothing, you wouldn’t…”

“Amy.”

She looks down at her stomach, away from him, almost ignoring how close he is to her.“She’s moving, like I can feel her, properly, it’s bizarre, but I…”

His reaches out to touch her almost without thinking about it, letting his hand rest against the lush swell of her body. 

It’s the first time he’s touched her properly since that night, and he can’t understand how he’s waited so long.

Amy stares at him, her eyes round.“I don’t think you’ll be able to feel it yet,” she says, “It’s barely even…”

“But you can?”

“Yeah, for a few days now,” she says, and that wondering tone is back in her voice, “I thought it would freak me out to be - but I think I like it.Isn’t that the strangest thing?”

“Well,” he says, feeling himself smirk, “You do have a piece of me inside you all the time now, figures you’d enjoy that.”  


“You’re such an _ass_ ,” Amy says, and goes to push his hand off her.

But when her skin touches his, all that gnawing hunger for her bursts out of him, and he’s kissing her, one hand on her face, the other pushing her skirt up, and Amy’s kissing him back, breathless and messy, fisting her hands in his collar and biting his lip.

When he fingers her though her underwear she seems to come back to herself, because she pulls back from him, just a little.“We can’t -”

“We _can_ ,” he says, letting her hear the desire in his voice.“Amy, we can do anything we want, we can fuck each other blind for all anyone cares.”

There’s something calculating in her eyes that seems alien to her when she says, “Is that what you want?”

“To fuck you on this couch right now?”He kisses her, thoroughly, exploring her hot mouth with his own, pushing her back into the sofa as he does so.“Yeah, Ames, I do.”

She wants it just as badly as he does, he can tell, so it doesn’t surprise him when she says, “Fine.Fine.”

“Knew you couldn’t hold out on me forever,” he says, nipping at her neck.

“No, you have to understand,” Amy says, “You can have this, and only this, or you can have nothing.That’s it.”

“So your plan,” he says, slowly undoing the buttons of her dress, kissing as he goes, “Is to just ignore the fact that I’m your kid’s father?”  


He presses his mouth to the round of her stomach and hears her gasp.

“It’s worked pretty well so far,” she says, and hauls him upwards, “Now get on with it.And take off your shirt.”

He grins, because he loves the thought that she wants to touch him just that much, but complies… and when his skin is pressed to hers, all the desperation is reignited, and they’re grabbing at each other, moving faster than either of them can stand. 

And Amy, Amy finally feels like herself, poking him and swearing at him and telling him what to do,and no matter what she says, how annoyed she seems, he just kisses her more, grabs on to her more, pulls her closer.(Half the women he met in New York were in love with him after the first date, and the other half… had mirrored him in not giving a single fuck, and none of them, none of them made his blood boil the way Amy did when she slapped him and called him a terminally insincere shitsack). 

When it’s over, he does something unwise, and tells her exactly what’s on his mind.“I’m glad you came back,” he says, stroking her the skin of her shoulders.

“Yeah, well,” Amy says, “If I hadn’t Selina would be your only option and…I don’t think that would work out well for either of you.”

“I do have some standards you know.”  


“No, Dan,” she says, and it’s almost affectionate, “You don’t.Your entire sexual history proves that pretty effectively.”

“Forget about all that,” he says, “We’re here now, we’re together.”

“No,” Amy says, and starts to climb out of his lap, “We’re not.This is it.”She starts to button up her dress, and he finds himself distracted from what she’s saying by the way her hands are shaking. “I’ll give you this, I’ll give you what you have always fucking wanted, but that does not mean -”

“For fuck sake,” he says, “You’re being ridiculous.”

“So what?I get to be ridiculous - I am in the most fucked up situation, so I get to do whatever I feel like to get _out_ of it.”

He takes a step towards her.“Well unless you feel like having an abortion, which I’m pretty sure you don’t, Ames, you’re not getting out of it.You’re stuck with me - you don’t have to like it, but you are.No kid of mine is ending up like one of your sister’s fatherless delinquents.”

“ _Don’t._ ”

“What, I’m not allowed to mention the fact that you have a sister ever again?You realise you're the only one who… it meant less than nothing to me, and I guarantee, Sophie’s forgotten all about it, probably can’t remember if I was number fifty-four or forty-six, but you -”He has her almost pinned against the door now - he can see her pulse fluttering in her throat, he’s so close to her.“You fucked off to the other side of the country _for a year_ all because -”

“Because you’re a shit,” Amy says, and slips away from him.

He’s still half undressed, so he has to pull himself together before he can follow her. 

Normally, normally fighting with Amy made him energised - high on his own success - but this time… he’s _sick_ of her running away and ditching him every time he gets close, sick of being cast aside whenever she gets scared.

When he leaves the office and sees her crying in her car, her head buried in the steering wheel, he feels worse, if anything.

And maybe that’s why he opens her door, bending to look her in the face before she’s even realised he’s there.

“Move over,” he says.“I’ll drive you home.”

“I don’t need you to - you should just leave me alone -”

“Yeah, I left you alone before and you went and replaced me with a dust bowl daddy long-legs.No way my daughter is having one of those failure-to-thrives as a surrogate dad.”

“You don’t get to _decide_ that.”

“Whatever,” he says, “You’re exhausted.Let me drive you home.”

She must see something in his face that’s convincing, because after a moment she slumps, giving in, and hands him the keys. 

They drive in silence, Amy wiping at her eyes when she thinks he can’t see, neither of them actually listening to the radio.

When they’re stuck at a red light, about ten minutes from her apartment, she finally speaks.“It’s not like the kid’ll starve if you’re not around, you know, I planned for that.I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Yeah, well, I want to plan too.”

“Really?”  


“We can’t just send her to any shitty inner-city…she’s gonna need the best, and a lot of networking happens around schools in D.C.”

“You cannot be fucking serious - you’re graduating from networking with an eight year old to networking via eight year olds.”

“I want to fucking talk about it.And I want to talk about money and daycare and how we’re going to manage having a baby on a campaign and what you’re going to need and -”

“Well I _don’t_ want to talk about those things.There’s no point in any of that, we should just -”

“Pretend for the next eighteen years that, what, we just happen to know each other?’

“You’ll have fucked off somewhere long before then.”

From the look on her face, he can tell that she believes it, and so, as he parks the car, he decides to give her something she doesn’t expect.

“You know,” he says, “If things had played out differently, you might have already had the kid by now.”

“Human gestation is pretty reliably nine months, so -”

“No,” he says, and takes her hand, “I meant if Gary hadn’t interrupted us in the bar that night then -”

“That same night you spent hours talking about whether to have sex with Jane McCabe?”

He waves her sentence off.“First time I’d seen you in more than a year and you really think I was planning to let you walk out of there _alone_?”

“Yes?”For the first time, Amy sounds unsure, likely she genuinely hadn’t considered the possibility before.“Don’t pretend one drunken mistake was something you planned, that’s just - this wasn’t fate, this was you not asking your doctor the right questions, and me being dumb enough to trust you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I can be very persistent when I want to be - if I hadn’t had to practically twist your arm off to get you to see me, this might all have been -”

“Well I didn’t want to see _anyone_ ,” she says, “I shouldn’t even have seen you, I should have told you to fuck right off but… it was a sucky time and -”

“I’m sorry.”

She rolls her eyes.“Sorry for what?Helping Buddy tell the whole fucking world how unsatisfactory I am?Or -”

“For all of it.”

He doesn’t qualify it, doesn’t explain it, and only partly because he wouldn’t know where to start. 

Amy looks at her hands, “It wasn’t all your fault.”

“But enough of it was.”

“Don’t try and take all the credit, I could have turned him down, I could have tried something else, but -”

“But you didn’t.”

Amy yawns, and says, “I’m going to bed, this is…enough for one day.”  


“Fine,” he says, “But next time?”

“Maybe,” she says, “I’ll think about it.But that is all it will be.”

He waits until she’s walked up her steps and into her apartment before letting a grin cover his face.He knew he’d find his way back into her bed eventually.


	4. Chapter Four

Things are easier now that they’re fucking.

Well.Kind of.

Amy, Dan is amused to note, has no real idea how to manage a ‘friends with benefits’ situation.She’s uncomfortable with it, and it shows.

In the week or two after they destroy Chung, she manages to set some ground rules.Sex in hotel rooms is fine, or at least acceptable, but he’s never allowed to come to her apartment.The truth is, Amy seems most at ease with the situation when they fuck in the office and remove as few items of clothing as possible.

It’s very like the set-up he had with Brie, and somewhat to his surprise… he doesn’t really like it.

Or, no, he does like it - he’s having sex with Amy, not liking it would be impossible - but it simply isn’t enough.

She’s still not really _talking_ to him, still not letting him in, and there’s something unsatisfying about it.Some nights he wants to tell her to skip the sex and just come have dinner with him (he doesn’t) (of course not, he’s not insane) (it just crosses his mind).

Amy doesn’t seem any happier either, and he starts to wonder if it’s really worth it.At least if he was having sex with random women he wouldn’t be worrying about them bursting into tears in their car afterwards.

Which is why he decides to take advantage of their trip to New Hampshire.There’s fuck all to do in Concord once the political events are over, and so he inveigles himself into her hotel room.(Well, kind of.The team gets Thai food delivered to Selina’s suite so they can watch Jonah’s shuttle crash of a speech, and Amy’s so thrilled with his colossal failure that when he kisses her outside her door, she all but drags him into the room).

Still, the sex is perfunctory at best, and almost as soon as they’ve finished, Amy climbs off him and disappears into the bathroom. 

It wasn’t like this in that night in New York.It wasn’t like this at all.

Amy had been warm, passionate even, lost in the moment with him, clinging on to him with something that was almost trust.

When she comes back into the room, she’s wearing pyjamas and has scrubbed her face clean of make-up.She looks irritated to see him, but doesn’t say anything, walking delicately to the bed, stepping over her discarded purse and shoes and crumpled dress to check her phone.

But before she can use the news alerts as an excuse to ignore him, Dan sits up, grasping her wrist to pull her back into his arms.

Amy rolls her eyes, not resisting him exactly, but not melting into him the way he’d hoped. “Didn’t get enough the first time?”

He slides his hand under her Penn shirt, resting his palm flat against her back as he pulls her so that she is half-straddling him. 

“Don’t you know by now I can never get enough?”

“I’m just surprised you haven’t fallen asleep already,” she says, avoiding his eyes. “You can go, I don’t expect you to stay and cuddle.”

“Maybe that’s what I had in mind.”

There’s something grim in her laugh as she says, “Oh, were you hoping to talk to the baby?Feel her kicking?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

He could keep bantering with her all night, but they’re interrupted by a pounding on the door, and Selina’s voice saying, “Amy.Amy!Amy Brookheimer!”

“Shit,” Amy says, trying and failing to climb off his knee.“Something must have… put something on.”

“You’re not going to make me hide in the bathroom?”

“She knows.”

“Amy.Have you two been having girl talk about me?”

“After the amount of shit I had to endure about Ray and Andrew and - I should have, it would be payback, but no.She just… _knows._ She could tell.”

“You have been in a much better mood.”

“Whatever.Cover yourself.Unless you _want_ Selina to see you with a semi?”

She gets off him properly, and goes to open the door while he finds his boxers.(Selina won’t give a shit, he’s pretty sure about that).(If anything she’d probably appreciate the opportunity to eye him up).

Selina practically falls into the room when Amy opens the door, her hand still raised for another pounding.She looks furious, which is normal, and over-excited, which isn’t.

“What the shit is this, _Amy_?”

“Is what, ma’am?”

“You mean you haven’t - I thought your getting laid would make you a better campaign manager, but obviously not.”

“I don’t…understand.”

Amy folds her arms over her chest, and it’s kind of impressive how she can hold herself as though Selina didn’t walk into a room that still smells of sex.

“Guess who’s running for President, _Amy_?”

“Did Tom James announce at last?”

“No,” Selina says, distracted for a moment. “Though he’s going to, I’m sure of it.No, this is someone even worse.”

“Doyle?”

“Buddy Calhoun.Your human albatross of a fiancé has got it into his head that he oughta be President, he can clean up things in D.C.What is it in the water out there that makes every second halfwit think he should be in office?First Pierce and now this.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Amy says, and she genuinely does sound confused.“Buddy hated the campaign, I can’t imagine he’d sign up for another one.”

“Yeah, well, that was before you dumped him, girlie.It obviously had some kind of impact.”

“I don’t know if you remember, but I left because he…”

“Whatever,” Selina says, “Strategy meeting first thing.”

And then she’s gone, though Dan hears her barking at Gary as she goes.Amy stands still for a moment, seemingly staring into space, and when she meets his eyes he can tell she is…unsettled.Not that she says anything no, but she does grab for her phone, all but ignoring him as she pulls up the latest political alerts (despite the fact that he reads them over her shoulder).

Buddy had made his announcement with a youtube video, one that leveraged his personal story of seeing how D.C. could drain the warmth and love and decency out of even the most wonderful person, and how losing the sweetest woman on earth to the poison that seeped out of every inch of that city had convinced him that “It’s time for a change.”

It’s all very Mr Calhoun Goes to Washington, right down to the incredibly dated production values, and he spares a thought to wonder what campaign manager could possibly have authorised the release of such obvious meme-bait.

He laughs, because he hadn’t thought it possible that there could be a candidate more incompetent than Jonah, but…

But Amy doesn’t see the funny side.

When he starts making the obvious jokes she grimaces and says, “Can you just… Go.”

“Oh, come _on_ , Ames, do not tell me you are pining over -”

“Can you just _leave_?”

“Are you crying?”

“Fuck _off_ Dan, I don’t want to -”

“Were you hoping to run his Presidential campaign someday?”

“Are you fucking serious?” Amy’s voice cracks in what he’d prefer to think is a laugh, “You think I want to tie myself to that sinking ship all over again?”

“Well then what’s to fucking cry over?”

“He only had to go tell the whole world how inadequate I am, _again_ , like it wasn’t bad enough the first - _fuck_ him.”

Her face crumples, tightening as though she’s struggling to hold something in, and she bends, picks up his jacket and throws it at him.“Get out,” she says, “I’m not having this conversation with you, I -”

But Dan’s not falling for that.He throws the jacket aside and says, “So you can sit and stew all night, and fuck up the kid while you’re at it?No.”

Amy stares at him, her big blue eyes baffled.“Why do you even want to be here for this shit?You enjoy seeing me…humiliated that fucking much?’

He pulls her into him again, letting his hands roam over her back and ass, resting his chin between her breasts.“You’re fucking ridiculous,” he says, “He loved you so fucking much he’s trying to turn himself into the kind of asshole you might actually be interested in for more than five minutes.He might be the only presidential candidate in history who’s running for a reason that isn’t compulsive narcissism.”

“If this is you trying to make me feel better, you’re really bad at it,” Amy says, and her voice is watery, but slightly steadier than it was.

He pulls her down so she’s properly straddling him, liking the feel of her body pressing against his.“Fact of the matter is, all anyone has to do is look at you right now to know he’s full of it.”

“What are you talking about it?”

He slides his hand over her jaw and round to the back of her neck.“Have you looked in a mirror lately?Being pregnant with my spawn must _really_ agree with you, because you’ve got that glow.”

“You’re just fluffing me.”  


“Why do you think it is I can’t keep my hands off you ?” he says, letting his thumb stroke the soft white skin of her thigh.

“I don’t know, maybe you’re always like this, maybe you’re part octopus.”

“Or maybe I’m finally getting to do what I always _wanted_ to do.”

“Sure,” Amy says, scepticism dipping from her tone.

And the funny thing is, it’s true.He’d had this idea in his head that if he could just soften Amy up a little, maybe she’d loosen up enough that he could get her to talk to him - but it’s been surprisingly easy to execute.All he has to do is touch Amy every time he feels like it.

Before, whenever he’d had the urge to throw her on his desk and fuck her till she couldn’t form words, he’d reminded himself that if there was one thing in life he didn’t want to be, it was like Jonah, and so resisted the temptation.But now…

Which is why he decides to kiss her again.

But he takes his time.

Amy had been speeding through every encounter they’d had, throwing him down on the bed or the couch or wherever and racing on, telling him to hurry, to be quick, not to slow down, not to wait.It was almost as though she craved the moment when she could get away from him almost as much as the sex. 

So, instead of grabbing her and going to town, he lets the moment linger.He leans in close, letting his lips just graze against her ear, and says, “You don’t have the least fucking idea.”

“Is this where you tell me about the starring role I had in your spank-bank, because gross.”

“Something like that,” he says and pulls her shirt over her head.

But he doesn’t touch her immediately, instead taking the opportunity to…survey her properly, running his fingers just over her skin, almost but not actually touching her.

She’s uncomfortable, he can tell, resisting the urge to cover herself with her arms, and finally she says waspishly, “Proud of your handiwork?”

“No, Amy,” he says, and his voice is rougher than he’d expected. “I just like to look at you.”

“What?”

There’s something like a feeling in her voice, but he’s tired of talking, and so he leans forward and kisses her breast, hoping the touch of his mouth will convey as much as any words. 

Amy gasps, just a little, and her hands go to his head, holding him in place as he works, sucking and nibbling as he pleases.

She lets out a little…whine almost, when he pulls away, and he grins up at her, pleased with himself.And he doesn’t move to kiss her instantly, letting the moment drag out between them, listening to Amy breathe, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, watching her eyes go dark as she looks at him.

He leans into her, slowly, oh so slowly, and presses his lips to hers.It’s ever so slightly clumsy, brushing against Amy’s mouth without ever properly making contact.But when she lets out this little sigh, he feels it run through her whole body, and then she’s open to him, surrendering utterly the way he’d wanted, and making those little sounds women make when they’re turned on that have always driven him crazy.(It’s a power thing, Dan supposes, the thought that he’d _made_ her lose control).

Which is why he flips them, pushing her back into the bed. 

For a second, Amy won’t look at him, lowering her eyelids even as she, seemingly instinctively, wraps her arms around him.

“You don’t mind if I’m on top just this once, now do you sweetheart?”

“You’re such an asshole,” she says, but with a smile in her voice, so he’s not worried.

“It turned out so well for us before.”

“Please,” she says, “I’m surprised knocking me up didn’t put you off missionary for life.”

There’s something - he’s not sure what - that reminds him of when she told Ben that she’d wanted to tell someone who’d be happy about the baby.(He’d never thought Amy was the white-picket-fences type, but maybe some aspects of suburban middle-class socialisation died hard).

“Amy, Amy, Amy,” he says, kissing from her ear to her jaw as he goes, “Thanks to that one little slip, you can’t run away from me nearly so fast, so… there are a lot of upsides for me.”

“You sound like the villain in a Lifetime Movie.”

“If it means I get to have you whenever I want, I’ll take it, baby.”

“You’re so full of -”

He kisses her, cutting her off, and something he said must have worked, because Amy is _soft_ in his arm, pliant and warm and giving him everything he wants.It’s galaxies away from the hatefucking of the last few weeks, and it makes him gentle (almost) with her, strange though that may seem.

Afterwards, he doesn’t move, not immediately, staying so close they are virtually cheek to cheek, enjoying the feeling of her softness underneath him.And when Amy finally opens her eyes (and he feels a slight flutter in the air from her eyelashes), he kisses her cheekbone and says, “I can stay?”

She’s holding onto him, touching his back, his neck, his shoulder like she never wants to let go, and so it’s not a surprise when she says, “Yeah.Okay.We can do that.”

 

* * *

 

Of course, it can’t last.

When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Amy in the bathroom, wearing only a slip and doing her make-up in the mirror.He watches her for a moment before she sees him, enjoying the moue of dissatisfaction on her face when she looks at herself (though he can’t imagine what the cause is, she looks sexy as hell like this, all loose limbs and tangled hair).

He wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling her in so he can feel her ass against his crotch, burying his face in the soft place where her neck meets her shoulder.

“Morning,” he says, his voice sounding incredibly loud in the small bathroom.

Amy hangs her head for a moment, and he takes the opportunity and presses a kiss to the back of her neck.

Finally, she meets his eyes in the mirror, and says, “You can stop it.”  


“Stop what?” he says, inching her slip up as he speaks.

“You don’t have to pretend like I’m your fucking girlfriend, you can just go.”

“I know I don’t have to.”

“So stop it, it’s messed up, Dan.”

“No, _Amy_ , what’s messed up is you acting like all I’m interested in is your cunt.”

“Well isn’t it?”

He turns her, tilts her chin upward so she has to look at him.“If all I wanted was to fuck someone, you really think I’d be jumping through this many hoops?I’m here because it’s _you_ , and at some point you’re going to get that into your stubborn head.”

“Please,” Amy scoffs.“You’ve never had a feeling in your life.”

“There’s a first time for everything baby.”

“Yeah?” The scepticism in her voice hurts somehow.“Well then what _do_ you want?”

And the question throws him.He’s been so focused on getting Amy to _talk_ to him, to _listen_ to him, to spend a whole ten minutes in his presence without crying or shouting, that he hadn’t given much thought to anything else, to their fucking future.

“Yeah,” Amy says, and her face is hard.“That’s what I thought.You just don’t like being ignored, that’s all this is.”

She pulls away from him then, and she seems diminished somehow, but more like herself, putting on the face he remembers, the mask he used to take such pleasure in cracking. 

“You can have the shower,” she says, “I’m done here.And I’m done pretending like this is… it was a mistake to - don’t come by my hotel room again.”


	5. Chapter Five

 Amy gets big.

It’s sudden, or at least it feels sudden to Dan.One day she’d been her usual self, a little curvier, a little rounder…but that only meant there was more of her for him to grab onto.

But then one day she comes into work and…she is _really_ fucking pregnant. 

It’s like he’d never noticed it before, but he can see it in the way she moves, the change in her walk, how she seems to have to think for a moment before getting out of a soft chair. 

And everyone else seems to know how to handle it better than he does.Kent and Ben offer Amy their arms when she’s struggling to get up seemingly without thinking, Gary starts offering her snacks from the Leviathan, and even fucking _Leon_ volunteers to get her a drink of water one day when she looks tired.

Whereas he… he doesn’t know what he should be doing.

He’d called her, several times, after she cut the cord on their burgeoning whatever-the-fuck-it-was, but she categorically refused even to go out for lunch with him. 

Pissed off after his sixth attempt to get her to talk to him, Dan had gone to the bar one night with Selina’s band of fresh-faced interns. 

Which was a mistake.

One he kept making.

Three weeks in, there’d been two fights in the office between Week One and Week Three, Week Two had taken to crying her eyes out in the restroom, and Amy had, entirely uncharacteristically, volunteered to spend a week in Des Moines, prepping the volunteers for Selina’s first proper trip through the state.(And meeting the local party elders ahead of the Emancipation Day brunch Selina was going to speak at).

He’d offered to go with her, but Amy had shaken her head so vigorously she looked like she was having a seizure, and Ben ended up going instead.

The only time he even spoke to her that entire week was when she rang up the office, looking for Selina but forced to talk to him instead.She’s pissed the fuck off, having just found out that Buddy is going to be at the brunch too, and she isn’t comforted when Dan says he’ll handle it.

“Please,” she says, “You’ll only make things worse.”

It crosses his mind to wonder why she’s in such a pissy mood, but all he says is, “You think I can’t take your little wind-up ex-boyfriend?”

“Ex-fiance,” Amy says, “And somehow, the idea of you teaming up with him to tell everyone how fucking useless I am doesn’t - just leave it alone.”

“Ames,” he says, but she’s already hung up.

Which. 

He’s fucking sick of this.He can’t make Amy talk to him, and he can’t turn back time and make himself not have slept with Sophie… but he _can_ destroy Buddy Calhoun so completely the man will never utter a complete sentence again.(And maybe if Amy doesn’t have her ex bitching about her in the press all the fucking time she’ll lighten up, just a little).

He takes it to Selina, since there’s no point trying to convince Amy of anything, and her reaction is gratifying.

She likes the speech he’s written, likes the idea of hamstringing Calhoun’s campaign right out the gate, but she’s…curious as to why he wants to do it, staring at him over her glasses like he’s some kind of new specimen.

“Dan,” she says, “Is this meant to be some kind of fucked up gesture?”

“No,” he says, “It’s a chance to squash him like the backwards grasshopper he is.And then maybe Amy will talk to me again.”

Selina laughs, as does Gary, a moment later.“You think, what, you crush Buddy with a few well-crafted sentences and she’ll fall right back into your arms?I mean it’s better than fucking half the interns in a fit of pique, I’ll say that, but it won’t work.”

“It might.”

  
“No, Dan,” she says, “It won’t.I mean, I’ll use it, ‘cause after the shit Amy’s told me… but…you do realise Amy’s not going to magically intuit that you want her when you just spent a month going out of your way to remind her that you were fucking women who were younger and skinnierand -”

“Oh, come the fuck on,” he says, “She knows that’s not -”

“She knows you’re fucking them and not her.Women are very simple creatures Dan - we assume that if a man’s fucking us, it’s because that’s what he wants, and if instead he’s fucking someone else well then that’s because that’s who he wants.She’s not going to crack your clever code - she’s going to assume you want nothing to do with her, now that she’s a balloon.”

“Oh please,” he says, “Amy’s been on the hot list since she started in D.C. she’s not going to -”

“And her last boyfriend told the whole world she was shit in bed, Ben says you fucked her sister, and…You do realise,” Selina says, leaning forward, “Every word in this little speech of yours is true?Buddy, you, that fucking mecanno monster she used date, she’s not looked really happy with any of you.Not since the New York guy.”

“Yeah,” Gary says, “She really liked him.’  


“Remember?” Selina says, “She came into work all… _giddy_ , Amy, giddy, it was fucking embarrassing to look at, every time she saw him and then I guess he dumped and she was useful to have around again.”

“You know that was me?” 

He feels incredibly proud of himself, the way he always does when people point out just how much Amy fell for him back in the day, but Selina merely shrugs.

“Well poor Amy then,” she says.“Guess I should have given _her_ the speech about all men being horrible, and not Catherine.I’m going to tweak the wording just a little bit.”

“Of course ma’am,” he says, trying not to let his annoyance show in his voice. 

“Also,” she says, “If I’m going to obliterate this dried up horse-turd, can you make sure someone films it.Not Richard.”

“Done,” he says, and goes to call Ben.

They fly into Des Moines late on the Saturday night, and he doesn’t see Amy until the next morning, when they all meet in the lobby.She gives them a rapid fire update on local party gossip in the car, including the details of the DA’s  _horribly_ public divorce and the battleground that has become the most recent State appropriations bill.She has some frank things to say about some of the local congressional candidates and their obsession with Israeli politics, and they all get so swept up in listening to her complain that Dan almost forgets the fun that awaits.

But only almost.

Amy does that thing she does when she’s upset the moment Buddy walks into the room, obsessively checking her phone, snapping out responses to questions, and barely making eye contact with anyone.Admittedly, it’s not hugely different from how she is usually, but he notices.(He notices because it’s exactly the way she was with him in fucking Nevada, which might be why he’s the only one).

Buddy starts with his usual spiel, and he can see Amy visibly tensing with fury.But she almost levitates in surprise when Selina stands up, saying, “I’ve had just about enough of this.”

Everyone looks very embarrassed, in that mid-Western way, but no one does anything as she strides up and takes the mic. 

“You know,” Selina says, supposedly talking to Buddy, but actually addressing the entire room.

“I’ve known Amy Brookheimer since she was nineteen years old.  I was one of the first people she called to say she was engaged.She’d had a tough time - it’s hard for young women in DC, it can be really hard - and I remember how happy she was, how sure she was that she’d met someone who would never, _ever_ hurt her.And she moved to Nevada to be with him, and he said he wanted a political career, and she said ‘fine, I’ll make it happen.’Which… of course, she did.She turned you, Secretary of State Calhoun, into a candidate people could believe in.Didn’t she?”

Selina pauses for a moment, to give Buddy a chance to nod along with her, like a moron, and then continues.“And for all that, you humiliated her, dragged her name through the dirt.And even now, you’re still doing it.You can’t get her name out of your mouth - you talk about her all the time, and all while you pretend to be the only decent man left in politics.Well, let me tell you, in my experience, decent men don’t use the women who loved them as step-stools.They wouldn’t stoop to it.So, if you want to carry on with your little pretend crusade, _Buddy_ , you go right ahead and do that.But don’t you _dare_ blame Amy Brookheimer for your mistakes.”

She doesn’t drop the mic, but only because that would be tacky. 

Buddy sits down, looking like a surprised fish, and unable to help himself, Dan reaches out and squeezes Amy’s hand under the table.She stares at him for a second, and says, “Why?”

“Like you have to ask.”

“He did it,” Leon says, “Because it was the easiest way of destroying your ex’s shameful excuse for a candidacy, and because he’s too much of a coward to say he’s sorry for having been so much himself all this time.”

  
“Sure,” Amy says, and the scepticism in her voice makes Dan wince.(Is it really so hard to believe he might want to be nice to her?)

“Come on kid,” Ben says, “Team Meyer wasn’t going to put up with that shit for too long.”

“You’re all fucking assholes.”

But the way she says it he can tell she’s glad, and he finds himself grinning all the same.

Which is when Leon says, “Are they always like this?”

“Oooh yeah,” Ben says, “Going on six years now.”

“Sublimated sexual desire can drive intense competition,” Kent observes, not that he would know anything about it.

“That’s ridiculous,” Leon says, “You’re both exhausting.I’m not sure who’s worse.”  


“Excuse me?”(They say it simultaneously, because of course they do).

“I mean, Dan’s head is so permanently lodged in his own fundament he can’t even grasp that a woman knowing him and still wanting to be with him is a real life actual miracle - and Amy, you’re pining over someone who’s dumb enough to think sleeping with a twenty year old is anything other than pathetic for a supposedly grown adult man.You’re beautiful, smart and running a Presidential campaign.What on earth do you need Dan for?”

Weirdly, this is when she squeezes his hand, pressing it back against her belly.And the baby inside her must feel it, feel the pressure or something, because Dan feels a movement, a jerk against the back of his hand. 

But before either of them can say anything, Selina rejoins the table, wanting to be congratulated and wanting everyone to say how great she is, all the usual.And it’s five whole minutes before Amy notices he hasn’t spoken, too busy hugging and thanking and complimenting Selina.

“What’s up?” she says, “Your face looks like you got really good news.”

“I felt her.”

“What?”

“I felt our fucking kid squirming around inside you like an alien about to be born.”

“Okay, gross,” Amy says, “And I’m not sure what your point is, that’s what they do, your daughter’s been kicking the shit out of me for the last three weeks.Not that you’d know that, since you’ve been so busy with - whatever.”

“No,” Dan says, “You don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

He can’t quite explain it, and even if he could she probably wouldn’t believe him, but… there’s going to be another Egan walking around in not too long.A part of himself, one little person, and it strikes him, with absolute and total certainty that… while he might not have planned to do this, there isn’t anyone else he’d want to have that person with.He wants to see Amy’s face reflected in _his_ child, and no one else’s.

It could only have been her.

So he squeezes her shoulder and says, “Eat your fucking waffles.”


	6. Chapter Six

Amy’s in such a good mood after Selina eviscerates Calhoun it’s almost contagious.(That the feminist contingent of the commentariat had taken up Selina’s argument, and collectively accused Buddy of being nothing more or less than abusive, probably helped).

She’s so cute when she laughs at Buddy’s miserable face, so fucking kissable every time she smiles gleefully at her ex being torn apart, that Dan almost can’t stand it.

It’s been a long, _long_ time since he’s seen her like this.

(Which… he knows it’s his own fault).(With the benefit of hindsight, he knows exactly why Amy stopped smiling at him).

Of course Amy in a good mood still looks like grumpiness to most people, but he doesn’t care, he can see the difference.

Perhaps it’s that - having felt her move at last - he’s finally feeling just a little bit excited about meeting his daughter.He finds himself wondering in spare moments who she’ll look like, what she’ll like to do.He’d even started bugging Amy about baby-carriers - somewhat to her surprise - because if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that a picture of him wearing a three thousand dollar suit with his daughter strapped to his chest will send him straight to DILF territory.He’s seen the way women react to all those pictures of Chris Hemsworth with his little girl, after all, and there’s no way that won’t be beneficial - to Selina’s campaign, to his image, to any… plans he might have for the future.

And Amy is key to that, he sees that now.There’s no future in interns, and sleeping with them is so easy there’s no sport in it either. 

It had never crossed his mind that it was possible, but he has finally reached the point where there is no woman who can leverage him into a better job.Like, sure, he could chase down some newly-elected Congresswoman or Senator and see where that might lead him, but when it comes out that he’s Amy Brookheimer’s Baby-Daddy (which it will) (he knows it will, whether or not Amy wants to acknowledge as much) it would only backfire, making him look worse, if anything.

What he needs is an _actual_ trophy wife.

Thirty years ago he could have married some pretty little blonde, who kept her legs and mind closed and managed to look at him with something resembling devotion (no matter how bored he was with her - and he would have been dangerously bored).Fortunately for Dan, times and expectations have changed, and nowadays a serious politician needs a serious wife, a woman with qualifications and experience all her own. 

And it could only be Amy.

For all Buddy Calhoun had all the political nous of a wet duck, his glomming onto Amy as a potential political-wife made complete sense.She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she has connections, she’s admired in her field… she’s everything Shawnee Tanz wasn’t, to pick an example more or less at random.

Realistically, Dan should have seen all this years ago, but… well, his little detour with CBS had made him realise a few things. 

He has no fucking interest in being a talking-head for the rest of his life, none.He wants _power_ , something concrete in his hands that no one can take away… and Amy will help him get it.She’s the only one, the only possibility, the one person he could imagine seeing every day for the rest of his life and not being bored by.

Besides, if he doesn’t lock this down… he does not like the idea of her hooking up with someone else, giving someone else _his_ place with their daughter, in her bed, not one bit. 

He’d miss her too much.

(He hadn’t thought about her - at all - when she was in Nevada.He hadn’t wanted to call her to brag about every promotion he received at CBS, and he hadn’t wanted to ask her opinion of how Furlong was doing as Speaker, and he hadn’t wanted to hear her rant about everything Selina was fucking-up, and he hadn’t missed dragging her out for meals and drinks whenever he felt like it).(There’d been one woman - Alicia - who he’d gone back to a couple of times, and he was almost positive that had nothing to do with the fact that her perfume was so very, very familiar). 

Which is why he’s taking steps.

She’s letting him buy her breakfast now, sometimes even taking his hand when he offers to help her up stairs, smiling at him under her eyelashes when he says something clever. 

He knows Amy has feelings for him, he’s not an idiot.

The problem is, paradoxically, her feelings are almost certainly the reason she keeps holding him off.(That Amy still _has_ feelings after all her years in DC is almost a miracle, and an extremely annoying one.If it was _Sophie_ Brookheimer he was dealing with, he’s pretty sure he would have muscled his way in months ago). 

Still.There’s been some improvement.

Maybe he won her over a little with his interest in feeling the baby, or maybe she just felt lighter when she wasn’t being castigated by the nation’s press, but she wasn’t freezing him out anywhere near as much.She’s stopped using Gary as a human shield when they all go for lunch, and lets him open doors for her, and sometimes she’ll even take his hand when he offers to help her up stairs, instead of shaking off his touch like he’s toxic.

Admittedly, she still won’t discuss the pregnancy with him in anything but the most general of terms, but it’s progress. 

Which comes to a screeching halt when she’s told that she can’t fly with the team after twenty-eight weeks.(That’s not quite true - she can still fly, but she has to provide the insurance company with a ton of paperwork every single time, and so Selina restricts her to essential appearances).

It means Amy is stuck in DC for days on end, and surprise surprise, she hates it.

She texts all of them relentlessly, wanting to know what’s up, what’s happening, wanting to be in the loop.One day when they’re flying back from a campaign event in Texas, Gary makes the mistake of making some comment about whether or not the baby will have a christening, and is Amy planning for it, and she goes off on him in the middle of a conference call. 

She sounds so pissed off that Dan stays on the line after everyone’s gone, because he wants to find out what’s behind this burst of fury.

“I filmed Gary’s face for you,” he says, “You almost made him cry.”

“Good,” Amy says shortly.

“Anything in particular bring this on?Did one of the interns look at you funny or something?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, but unlike everyone else you know, I’m not scared of you when you lose your temper, so…”

She sighs, deeply.“I’m just…sick of being pregnant,” she says.“I can’t get any sleep, I have to pee all the fucking time, my back hurts, it takes me five minutes to put on a pair of shoes…I miss sleeping on my front and _coffee_ and having a fucking air conditioner that works, and my family are driving me fucking crazy, they want to know all my plans for the baby, and I don’t have plans, Dan, I can’t even put the goddamn crib together, every time I try I end up with something that looks like a guillotine, and… I’m so _tired_.”

“Why doesn’t your air conditioner work?”

“I don’t fucking know!I’ve been trying to get someone out to fix it, but…everything just sucks right now.And all the interns _hate_ me, thanks to you.”

“Oh, I think you can take at least some of the credit for that.”

“Maybe,” she says (not wanting to admit that her growling at them for weeks on end _might_ have had something to do with it).“I hate being stuck here like this.”

“Amy,” he says, “We’re on a plane for the next three hours.Go to a fucking spa, or something, take an actual break.”  


“I can’t, I’ve got too many things I have to get done, my apartment’s not ready and we’ve got so much to do and… I don’t want some freaky stranger touching me right now.”

“All right,” he says.“At least take a nap on Selina’s sofa, or something.”

“I’m not sleeping on that,” she says, “I know what you like to do on it.”

“Would it help if I told you you’re the only one?”

There’s a pause, and maybe Amy heard the smile in his voice, because eventually she says, “Maybe it’s not such a _terrible_ idea.I can’t get any sleep at home.”

“Set one of the interns to watch twitter, borrow the sleeping mask from my desk drawer, and try to relax.”

“Of course you have a sleeping mask.”

He ignores that little jab, and hangs up.

This is something he can fix.

* * *

 

They get back to DC on the Monday morning, and Selina gives them all eighteen hours off (the downtime during campaign season always comes at the oddest times), so as soon as he’s unpacked and showered, Dan starts making phone calls. 

Partly because he’d always intended to, and partly because Kent had mentioned something about overheating being a bad thing during pregnancy (Dan doesn’t remember why), he knows he has to call out an air-conditioning repair man. 

It takes fifteen calls, a few threats, and one outright bribe, but eventually he convinces one of them to meet him at Amy’s apartment. 

It’s five-thirty by the time the repairman arrives, and Amy takes a full four minutes to answer her door (for he’s not sure what reason). 

Her eyes widen in surprise when she sees him, but she lets him in all the same (quite possibly only because his presence means sweet, sweet air conditioning is finally within her grasp).

It takes twenty minutes of Dan and Amy standing around while the repair guy examines the machine, not able to talk to each other, because he has questions, and not really able to talk to him either, because his head is buried in the machine. 

She looks cute. 

Her hair is curled and pinned up, and she’s wearing leggings, a tank top and a white blouse thing that’s tied up under her breasts.She even has a silk scarf wrapped around her head, and he keeps looking at the soft skin at the back of her neck, a part of her he usually doesn’t get to see.

When the guy says he can fix it, it will just take a few hours, Dan nods and drags Amy out of the apartment, telling her they’re going to get dinner.

She’s so tired she doesn’t argue, just walks by his side to her local mexican joint (and she has an actual waddle now, which is endlessly entertaining to him).They don’t talk about it.They eat and talk Houston voter turnout and Amy pretends to enjoy her virgin margarita.

When they get back to her apartment, magic has been worked, and it is blissfully cool, a bracing contrast to the hot DC air, and Amy sags against the wall, visibly relieved.

She has to use the bathroom immediately though and Dan wanders through her apartment, notingwhat hasn’t changed and what has.

She still has the photo of Paris on her wall, and a foot high stack of books by her sofa, but the home office is gone, and in its place is… a nursery.

He guesses.

The walls have been painted a soft yellow, but in every other respect it resembles nothing so much as a rubbish dump.There are furniture boxes and shopping bags piled everywhere, as well as various wooden sticks and slats and…that doesn’t surprise him, exactly. 

Amy had mentioned she was trying to put a crib together after all.What he doesn’t get is why there are _two_ of them.

She doesn’t seem surprised to find him there, though she doesn’t say anything about it.

“How much for the repair job?”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, just…how much do I owe you?”

“Forget it,” Dan says, “I took care of it.”

Amy pauses for a moment, staring at him.“You don’t have to do that.”

“Jesus fuck, Ames, I _know_ I don’t I have to do anything, you’ve made that very clear, I can fuck off to the next planet as far as you’re concerned.Did it ever cross your mind that I _want_ to?”

“No,” she says, and she’s trying to make it sound funny, but it doesn’t really work.

He reaches out and touches her stomach, “That’s my legacy in there,” he says.“I have to take care of it.”

“Oh no,” Amy says, “You are not prepping her for baby beauty pageants or whatever fucked up -”

“Please,” he says, “You think I want her around those freaks?Besides, it wouldn’t be sporting to enter her into a competition full of normal people.”

“You are actually turning into Selina right in front of me, this is horrifying.”

“Come on, this is _our_ kid,” he says, “Of course she’s going to be exceptional.”

“Honestly, I’m just hoping my genes can counteract some of the sociopathy.”

“That seems a fair trade, assuming she gets some of my height.”

“Shut up,” Amy says, and he grins, because he’s going to enjoy this.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to get things down from a high shelf whenever you need, but if you’re going to insist on holding me at arm’s length for the next twenty years, well…hopefully she can make up for it.”

“I don’t need you,” she says, waspishly.“I have a step ladder.Which is a lot less trouble.”

“True,” he says, “But I’m more multi-functional.A step ladder’s never eaten you out _and_ made you coffee.”

“Neither have you!”

“You’ve never given me the chance.”

“You’re so full of it, you don’t even realise.”

“Whatever,” he says, and bends to sit on the floor, “Do you want my help with this or not?”

“You’re going to build baby furniture?I think I should record this moment for history.”

He smiles up at her.“Go right ahead, post it on your instagram, I don’t care.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“I don’t even remember how many followers I have - if you tagged me, they'd love it.”

Amy grimaces.“I am already dealing with a million passive aggressive questions from my mother about who the daddy is, I am not adding fuel to that fire.”

“She thinks it’s me?”

“I didn’t say that, I just…there’s no need to have that conversation with them.”

“You’re going to have to tell them eventually, you know that.”

“No.”

“You don’t think they’ll be suspicious when I’m picking up your kid all the time?”

Amy looks uncomfortable.“Somehow I’m not too worried about that.Have you told _your_ parents?”

“That I got my best friend pregnant and she’ll barely speak to me?”

“You don’t _have_ friends.”

“Exactly.And, no, I wasn’t going to mention that, not until -”

“Until what?”

“Until you change your mind.”

“Jesus,” Amy says, “How many times have you been in this position?It’s like you’re reading off a fucking script of things you think I want to hear.”

“I’m not…that’s not what this is.I’m not a fucking idiot.”   Amy shrugs, and he continues.“You’re not wrong, all right?I didn’t plan on having kids or a kid or whatever, but…I don’t want you to start ghosting me again, so…the plan’s been changed.”

“So, what?You’ll tolerate our daughter because I come with her?Is that meant to be romantic, because it sounds like an infallible recipe for an adult fuck-up.”

“I’ll ‘tolerate’ her because she’s _ours_.Not to mention that we’ll make a _very_ photogenic family.” 

“And we’re back to being Selina,” Amy says with an eye roll.

“I didn’t like not having you.”He looks away from her as he says it, looks at the instructions, looks at anything else.

“You never _had_ me, Dan.”  


“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Oh come on,” she says, “The whole time we’ve known each other you’ve had, what, seven different women on a string, and oh, a different intern every weekend?You didn’t _want_ me, Dan, and you made that very fucking clear.”

“You do know there’s more to a relationship than sex, right? 

“What would _you_ know about that?”

“I”m saying what we had was better than…” 

He stops as he overhears himself, because it’s not _true_ exactly, but it’s… he means what he’s saying.

“What?Arguing about lobbying strategy with me was better than fucking every twenty year old in a ten mile radius?You cannot expect me to believe that for one second.”

“Neither was as good as fucking _you_.”

“It’s almost hard to believe you’ve been engaged three times.”

“Twice, actually.And is that what you’re after?”

“Dan,” Amy says, and her tone is completely serious, “If you buy me a ring, I’ll throw it at your head.I am not signing my life away so you can have a shiny new accessory - I have done my time as the betrayed wifey smiling for the cameras, so no fucking way am I -”

“What if we did it in secret and never told anyone?”

“I can count the number of times we’ve slept together on one hand -”

“And a few fingers.”

“And you’re jumping straight to marriage?You’re skipping a few - you’re skipping _all_ of the steps.”

“When you know you know.”He passes her the instructions for putting the crib together.“I’m not the one with all the doubts.”

“No,” Amy says, “You just have attention deficit disorder.”

“Whatever, read me the instructions.By the way are you secretly having twins, is that why there’s two of -”

“The bassinet is for when she’s really small.So she can be right by the bed, and I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night to… Sophie said it would be easier.She also said the rocking chair would help, which I think is probably bullshit.”

“Well we won’t worry about that yet,” he says, and picks up a screwdriver.

* * *

 

It takes a couple of hours to put the crib together - helped, or not, by Amy making snarky comments about his every mistake - and, feeling more confident now, Dan figures he’ll get to work on the rocking chair.

But Amy is clearly wilting, looking as though she wants nothing more than to curl up and sleep for twelve hours, so he says, “Do you want to…get ready for bed, shower or whatever?I can finish up on my own.”

“Dan, you can barely finish a press release by yourself -“

“It’s a fucking chair.I’ll manage.”  


“Fine,” she says, with an eye roll, “Try not to swear too loudly when it inevitably pisses you off.”

And then she tries to stand up which is, easily, the funniest thing he’s seen since the last time he had to watch Jonah attempt to hit on a human woman.Her balance has clearly been thrown off, because she flails about for a whole minute, struggling to get her feet under her.

“Is this why it took you so long to answer the door?”

“It’s just… difficult, all right?I can’t even see my feet half the time.Besides, this is the kind of shit you’re supposed to help me with, douchebag, instead of giggling to yourself.”  


“You get even more grumpy when you’re tired.”

“Fuck you so very much.”  


It doesn’t matter though, he still finds himself smiling as she leaves the room. 

His instinct was right, and putting the chair together is actually surprisingly easy, requiring nothing more than a few taps with a hammer.He feels so smug about it that he wants to show Amy his handiwork, and he’s walking towards her bedroom when he hears her shout, “DAN!”

There’s a half second where he wonders if she’s gone into labour or something (before he remembers that it’s at least six weeks too early for that), but when he sees her he realises it’s nothing like that.

She’s sitting at the foot of her bed, and she looks…energised.Thrilled even.

She holds her phone up so he can see it.“Chung just pulled out.Of the primaries.”

“Seriously?”  


He sits beside her, taking her hand in his so he can read the news alert, which quotes Chung’s self-serving concession speech in loving detail.Apparently, after a several-month long struggle with his conscience, his bank balance, and his deep-seated care for the health of the party and the nation, he’d decided that his political future would be best served by not suffering a second humiliating defeat to Selina.

“You did it,” Amy says, “You fucking _killed_ him.He’s never going to talk about that sad bastard in a tank ever again.We’re goddamn giantkillers.”

“Yeah, we are,” he says, stroking the soft skin of her cheek.“Just think of the fun we’re going to have when we go after Tom James.”

She laughs.“You’re the most impossible asshole.”

“I know,” he says, and kisses her.

He can’t help it. 

When she’s all riled up, practically bouncing with excitement, her face shining with open, honest delight… it’s always been his favourite look on her. 

It’s heady, the sweet, soft touch of Amy’s mouth under his, the contented little sigh she gives against his lips, the way her whole body seems to melt into him when he pulls her closer.He’s carding his fingers through her hair, kissing the sides of her mouth and her cheeks and her jaw, when she finally pulls back.

“You should go,” she says, “It’s late, and I’m -”

“That’s the very last thing I’m going to do.”  


“Dan, I’m too tired for sex, I just want to sleep, I can’t help it.”

“And…why does that mean I have to leave?”

“Please,” Amy says, “Like you’d stick around to make out for five minutes and then fucking cuddle all night.”

“I’d rather have you use me as a giant pillow than spend the night alone, so -”

Amy looks at him for a long moment, and then nods, sharply.“Okay,” she says, “I don’t have a spare toothbrush or whatever, so…”

“I’ll manage,” he says dryly.

“There’s a spare phone charger in the kitchen,” she says, yawning.“Do whatever you need to do, I’m getting into bed.”

She’s more than half-asleep by the time he’s plugged his phone in and stripped off his jeans, but when he crawls into bed and spoons her, slinging his arm around her waist, she makes a happy sound, turning her face back to look at him.

She looks almost shy, looking at him like this, but all she says is, “Goodnight,” before turning back around.But when he kisses the side of her neck, he feels her relax, one last little bit, and she twines her fingers with his, pulling his arm more around her, so the tips of his fingers are nestled between her breasts.

The feel of her against him, the soft, warm weight of her, the movement of her breath, the warm pulse of her skin, feels like the most real thing in the world.

But her feet are fucking freezing.

* * *

 

She sleeps in the next morning, slightly to his surprise - he knew her for a light sleeper, someone who woke up hours before her alarm, so she must have really needed it.

He’s watching the news and reading twitter when he hears a shout and a stream of curse words coming from the bedroom. 

He’d thought maybe Selina’s Labor Day scandal had come out at long last, but Amy is curled in on herself on the bed, clutching at her calf muscle, and making a sound that’s almost a whimper.

“Goddamn shitting motherfucker this hurts more than -”

“Leg cramp?” 

Her eyes are closed, but he can still see the surprise on her face as she nods. 

“I get them all the time now,” she says, “They’re the fucking worst.”

“Yeah,” he says, “Let me.”

He can see her biting her lip as he helps stretch her leg out - he doesn’t doubt it hurts like a bitch, but there’s no other way - and the way she’s breathing, shallow, short breaths, makes him want to crack a joke.

After thirty seconds or so she takes a deep breath and opens her eyes.“How do you know how to do this?”

“It happens at the gym from time to time,” he says, “It’s an occupational hazard.”

He reaches his hand out to massage her muscle, and Amy gives a low hiss of appreciation.“And I imagine it’s a good way to pick up women too.”

“Oh?Is it working?”

She looks away from him.“I didn’t think you’d be - I thought you’d gone.”  


“Oh really?” 

He keeps touching her, kneading the skin with his fingers, soothing away the pain.

“I thought you’d be out of here so fast there’d be skid marks on my floor.”

“If it were anyone else, maybe,” he concedes.“But there’s no way I’m letting you run the fuck away from me twice, Ames.”

There’s a long moment where she looks at him, her face vivid in the mid-morning light, and finally she says, “You want to get brunch?”

“Can you walk that far peg-leg?”

“Well we’ll have to see, won’t we?I’m driving.”

“Fine by me,” he says, and tries to hide his grin as she hobbles over to her wardrobe.

Fucking _finally._


	7. Chapter Seven

 

Amy is overdue.

This is apparently normal for first babies, and nothing to worry about, and that she is visibly struggling to make it through each day is just an unfortunate side effect that everyone has to live with.

She damn near bites his head off when he suggests she take a day off and rest, but she must be feeling it more than she will admit, because she’s letting him do all the driving.Amy prefers to drive - swearing at bad drivers allows her to burn off some of her perpetual frustration - but finding a comfortable position is hard for her at the moment, her belly taking up so much space between her and the wheel that she takes whole minutes to getting into the seat.

She’s too exhausted to even snap at Richard, which is what worries Dan more than anything.

So, he comes up with a plan.

She’s been letting him stay over most nights.She hasn’t said anything, but he suspects she’s just a little nervous about the prospect of going into labour by herself, which makes sense, and he’s more tolerable than having her sister over to stay.

Mostly he does things _for_ her - helps her get out of bed in the morning, makes sure she eats something before going to sleep, unpacks the terrifying stack of bags in the nursery so it no longer looks like a fire hazard.

It’s weird to spend so much time thinking about another person, but it’s also almost…nice.Sure, they’re not having sex (though not for lack of trying on his part), but otherwise.He gets to eat every meal with Amy, gets to tease her and taunt her and laugh with her whenever he pleases, gets to zip up her dress and hold her hand while she climbs into her shoes and smell her perfume in the mornings, see her react to every late-night and early morning fuck-up.

He’s not going to throw all that away again.

So, he books a hotel room for the night before Selina’s big Baltimore event.He tells Amy that it’s so she can rest ahead of the big speech - which is kind of true - and she’s so worn out that she doesn’t question him.

He drives them down that evening - Selina is off meeting donors with Ben, so they aren’t interrupted by half a dozen panicky phone calls.Amy even manages to snatch a little sleep while they’re stuck in end of day traffic, though she wakes up about fifty minutes in, and forces him to stop so she can go pee.(Probably Amy’s least favourite thing about pregnancy is having to pee all the time).

It’s still fucking Baltimore, so none of the hotels are that great, but he’s booked them a place on the inner harbour, and they go for steamed crabs, and he jokes that Amy can take some of her frustration out on the shells.

Her response is to scoff, and comment that she’d never expected to see him eating something that might stain one of his precious suits.

They’re surrounded by the clatter of the restaurant, and civilians talking about their boring lives, and Amy is plump and flushed and lush, and he feels a need to touch her running through his blood.He can’t help it - she’s too cute when she’s relaxed like this, laughing at his jokes and eating with her fingers.

It’s late by the time they get back to the hotel, and Amy goes straight to sleep, worn out by the long day, meaning he doesn’t have time to put his plan into action.

She’s been sleeping in odd positions, twisted round to avoid putting extra pressure on her back or hips, and waking up to go to the bathroom every three hours or so.When she gets up, just before five, she wakes him too, and that gives him his chance.

When she comes back to the bed he holds his hand out to her, pulling her in close when she lies down, so he’s half spooning her, half lying on her chest.(She likes having him so close, he knows, the warmth of his body easing some of the aches in her muscles just a little). 

“What’s up?” she says, her blue eyes full of baffled curiosity.

“I just wanted to touch you,” he says, and kisses her.

And just like every other time, Amy’s mouth opens obediently under his, surging to meet him all the way.(She tries to pretend otherwise, but she loves it when he touches her, always has, he knows this).

They make out for long minutes, Amy pulling him closer, so their chests are pressed together, skin to skin.He doesn’t push for more, not at first, because she’s been noticeably self-conscious about her size, reluctant to let him see her nude (or anything even close to it) now that she’s swollen up with his baby.(He’s considered telling that he wouldn’t give a fuck even if she _did_ reach the size of a walrus or whatever, but he’s fairly certain there isn’t any tactful way to say that).

So he’s slightly surprised to discover that, when he does at last reach down to touch her intimately, she’s more than ready for him, slippery against his fingertips, and moaning into his mouth as he strokes.

“You’ve been holding out on me.”

“It’s the fucking hormones,” she says, panting just a little, “I can’t help it, it’s all the time, I feel like I should pull my hair out.”

“Sweetheart,” he says, nipping at her lip as he kisses her, “You only had to ask.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I decided I’d rather spare myself five hours of fat jokes.”She’s trying to sound severe, but there’s a quiver in her voice that gives her away.

“I am occasionally capable of being a gentleman, you know.”

“Yeah, I do,” Amy says, pulling her gaze away from him and looking over his shoulder.“That’s what makes it so much worse when you’re not.”

“Babe,” he says, tilting her chin with his fist so she makes eye contact with him, “If you think you can make me forget I’ve got you wet in the palm of my hand… it’s not working.”

She rolls her eyes, hard.“Just imagine all the things you could have accomplished if you occasionally thought with something other than your dick.”

“Yeah,” he says, “But thinking with my dick is what got you into my bed with my kid in you, so actually it worked out pretty well for me.”

She mustn’t have a response for that, because she kisses him, and then it’s only a moment or two before he’s coaxed her to lie on her side, and they’re fucking.

Some things never change, and the perfect grip of Amy’s body on his is one of them.They lie together, satisfied and spent, afterwards, and he takes advantage of the chance to touch her the way he’s been wanting to, exploring every inch of her skin, how smooth and soft and warm she is.Their exertions must have woken the baby, because he can feel her bouncing round in there, the occasional jerk of movement that makes Amy wince.

“You know,” she says, “I didn’t even know where my liver _was_ until I got pregnant.Figures your kid would spend her time kicking the shit out of me.”

He laughs, pleased somehow at the thought of a mini-him.“She probably just likes to make you jump,” he says, “Same way I like getting to make you blush.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Amy says, but he doesn’t care.She’s relaxed in a way he hasn’t seen in weeks, comfortable in herself, and even if it won’t last, it’s worth it.

Especially when they have such a busy day ahead of them.Selina has a meeting with the Mayor (to give him her endorsement, whether he wants it or not), then the Governor, then a veteran’s tea sponsored by some mental health charity, and finally they’re attending the Laker’s match.

Dan could give less of a fuck about basketball, but it will give Selina the chance to mix with ordinary people and pretend she’s one of them, which isn’t to be sneezed at.(He has had several conversations with Gary about the necessity of _not_ giving her the hand sanitiser when in view of cameras, but he’s not sure it’s sunk in). 

They’re flat-out all day long, and Dan’s plan, such as it was, had been to spend the second night in the hotel - have sex a few more times (with any luck) - and drive back up to DC the next morning.

Unsurprisingly, things do not go to plan.

Amy’s in a good mood with him for most of the day, accepting help without even an eye-roll or a sarcastic comment, and pretending to be charmed by the Governor and his obsession with antique rifles.

She’s so fucking gorgeous like this, the hottest pregnant woman there’s ever been, that he can’t keep a smug grin off his face (well, he can, when he makes a special effort).

It doesn’t even go pear-shaped until they arrive at the basketball match.Amy is dragged away by Kent to talk to some local party bigwig and he loses track of her. 

The Ravens are playing the Lakers and, slightly to his surprise, Brie Ramachandran (or whatever her name is now) is in the audience.(He knows for a fact that she doesn’t give a single fuck about her fiancé-slash-husband’s games, so there must be some other reason she’s here).She runs down to the bleachers to come talk to him (and to get a picture of him introducing her to Selina, he’s guessing) during the break after the second quarter. 

She looks good - though she always looks good - and she takes care to give him a wide smile before kissing his cheek, letting her hand linger on his forearm before she pulls away.

“You know, Dan,” she says, “I did miss having you around the studio.”

“I bet you did,” he says, not bothering to pretend like he really cares.“It can’t be nearly as much fun when _Jane_ bends you over her desk.”

“You’re right,” Brie says, all but batting her eyes at him.“We should get a drink sometime, catch up on everything.”

(So, she’s definitely working an angle, trying to make her fiancé jealous or something.Which is fine by him).

“I’m kind of busy with the consultancy right now,” he says, not bothering to hide the fact that he’s scanning the crowd behind her, looking for Amy.

“It’s not just about -”

“Dan!Dan!”

He hears Amy before he sees her, her voice easily carrying over the crowd.He’s about to tell Brie that they’ll have to talk some other time (or never, he’s good with never), when Amy pushes her way between two of Selina’s Secret Service goons. 

The moment she sees Brie, she pulls up short, her mouth falling open in an almost comical way.She looks Brie up and down as Dan introduces them, and…

He’s always enjoyed Amy’s notable lack of a poker face, the way her emotions, her very thoughts, are painted in her expressions for everyone to read (or maybe just for him).He can admit - to himself if no one else - that half the reason he used to tweak and tease her so much was the sheer pleasure of having all that energy, all of that passion, directed straight at him.

But he can see her precise thought process as she looks at Brie - Brie who is polished, slim and perfectly coifed, who has a photoshop gleam and towers over Amy even without heels - and for the first time… he fucking hates it.He hates that Amy clearly thinks she comes up short compared to Brie (which, okay, is _literally_ true, but in every other way…), he hates seeing her shrink in on herself like this, hates the resignation in her face.

It’s total bullshit, but somehow…somehow Amy doesn’t seem to realise it.When Brie says, “I was just going to talk to Dan about Face the Nation - I’m moving there next month, and if I could snatch him up as a contributor, well -”

“Well you two should definitely talk about that,” Amy says, her lips so tight they’re barely visible.“I mean another chance at CBS, Dan would be thrilled.”  


“We did have _such_ a good time on the show together, didn’t we?” Brie says, smiling at Amy.“They used to call him my work-husband, we spent so much time together.”

“Oh?”

Amy has never looked less-amused than when Brie burbles on, “Oh, yes, we were in each other’s pockets for a while - Dan was texting me morning, noon and night, my fiancé was almost jealous.I told him there was nothing to worry about, of course, but… you know how men are.”

“I sure do,” Amy says, and takes a step back.“I’ll leave you two to talk about whatever it was, I have to… I gotta go.”

And then she’s stepping away, barking at Richard, and Dan is trying to get rid of Brie (because like _fuck_ is he going to give her a story on the Meyer campaign so she can convince Face the Nation that she’s a serious journalist - or whatever bullshitty thing it is she wants - he knows exactly what’s going on here), and then the whistle for the next quarter blows, and he can’t see where Amy is.

He starts to worry when he still can’t find her at the next break, and even more when she doesn’t  join them on the campaign bus.He has visions of her getting locked in the ladies room and going into labour - going outside to take a phone call in a quiet spot and going into labour - hiding behind a taco truck and going into labour…

He’s about to get off the bus and go looking for her, when Ben says, “Why are you still here?”

“Where else would I be?” 

“In the fucking hospital dipshit, with Amy.”

“What are you -”

“Her water broke like an hour ago, she went running off to find you, what the fuck are you still doing here?”

“She - she didn’t say… _fuck_.”

He doesn’t waste any time, calling an uber to drive him back to the hotel, where the car is.He’d prefer to give them the address of the hospital, but he’s not sure where Amy went and she’s not picking up her phone - he needs to be mobile.

Twenty minutes later his phone lights up, and he has never been more relieved to see Richard’s name.Admittedly, it takes five minutes, a considerable amount of swearing, and a narrowly-avoided rear-ending before Richard confirms he’d taken Amy to Sibley Memorial as they’d always planned.

He’s going to kill her. 

Not that he says this to Richard, no, not a bit of it, he manages to seem reasonably calm and like he’s not on the verge of losing his temper, but… after everything, after all the ways he’s helped her out, she sees him, what, exchanging a few words with Brie and decides it’s time to run for the hills again?Like she can just run off and leave him whenever she feels like it, like he doesn’t matter, like he’s not even a factor in her thinking.

Maybe he’ll accidentally-but-obviously-on-purpose let slip to the general public (and her mother) that he’s the daddy - maybe he’ll make her sit next to Leon at lunch every day for a month - maybe he’ll put her in charge of avoiding clashes with Jonah’s campaign, see how _she_ likes dealing with Teddy’s twattery for a week or two - but either way, he’s definitely going to make her suffer for this.

His plan had been to get to her as soon as possible, race to her hospital room and spend a leisurely twenty minutes telling her what a pathetic coward she is… but once he’s parked the car, he needs to take a second.Their kid is literally crawling her way into the world, and they still haven’t sorted anything out.What the fuck are they doing?

When he goes to take Amy’s overnight bag out of the trunk, he sees that his hands are shaking, and he doesn’t know if it’s excitement or nerves or anger or all three tangled up in some toxic mess that makes his legs feel shaky.

In a way, he's almost relieved when he gets to the corridor outside Amy’s room and hears Sophie Brookheimer’s voice. This he knows how to handle.

She and Amy are arguing, he guesses, or maybe she’s just trying to piss Amy off, because Amy isn’t saying anything, but Sophie…

“I still can’t believe _Dan Egan_ is your baby-daddy.You literally went after my sloppy seconds.Dad is going to be so mad.”

“Dad’s not going to know.”

“Oh you think I’m going to keep this quiet?Please, I can’t _wait_ for them to find out you’re even more of a fuck-up than I am.Like, at least my kid’s fathers give a shit if I live or die.Dan doesn’t give a fuck about you, he never did, he’ll throw you over for someone hotter the first chance he gets.And let’s face it, there’s a lot of them out there.”Amy makes a pissed off noise, but doesn’t say anything, and Sophie continues.“Even _he_ thought it was funny when Buddy told the world how fucking awful you are - maybe because he knows from personal experience.”

“Sophie,” he says from the doorway, not able to take it any more.“Get the fuck out.”

Her head snaps around to look at him, as does Amy’s, and for a moment her mouth hangs open in blatant shock. 

“ _Dan_ ,” she finally says, attempting to sound ingratiating.“It’s been a while since we -”

“Believe me when I say, I really don’t give a fuck.Get out.”

“I’m family, I’m supposed to -”

“No, you’re a thundering bitch.You make Selina Meyer seem like she’s _kind._ Now get the fuck out of here.”

Sophie looks at Amy, but Amy’s looking away, ignoring both of them, and so she grabs her purse and flounces out of the room, saying, “I was going to get a coffee anyway.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Amy turns on Richard.

“I told you _not_ to call him, is your brain so over-padded with stupid your nervous system isn’t transmitting sensory information any more?”

Richard gives her a broad smile, and says, “You’ve both been so excited for the baby to come, I knew Dan would never want to miss it, it’s such a meaningful moment.”

Amy folds her arms, glowering at him, and Dan almost wants to laugh.She looks _ridiculous_ , all puffed-up in her white nightgown, so flushed she can’t even seem properly angry.He comes closer to the bed, runs his hand over one of her ankles beneath the blankets, and says, “You too, Richard.Go keep pay for Sophie’s coffee or something.”

“Okay.Should I get Amy an almond croissant while I -”

“She’s not allowed to eat while she’s in labour, dipshit, just go.And try not to fuck Sophie in the intensive care unit while you’re at it.”

Richard leaves, and Amy sulks.

Dan would like to describe it with a more mature word, but that’s honestly what she does, slumping down against her pillows and refusing to look at him.She’s even _pouting_.

Unable to resist, he snaps a photo of her, her bottom lip sticking out like she’s four years old.

When her phone dings a moment later, because he’s tagged her on instagram, she flat out _growls_ at him. 

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“That’s been true as long as we’ve known each other sweetheart, no reason for you to go running off now.”

“What are you even doing here?Isn’t CBS calling?”

He doesn’t bother waiting to be invited, just pulls up a seat and sits down beside her on the bed, dumping his bag on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “Do you _want_ to give birth while being sequentially tormented by Richard and Sophie?Because I can call them back.”

“Still have Sophie’s number saved for the occasional quickie?”

“You really are the most resentful person I've ever met, you know that?”  


“My fucking uterus is contracting so hard I can barely walk, because of _you_ , so I will resent whatever the fuck I feel like.”  


“Fine by me,” he says, “Just try to look cute while you’re doing it, because I want some decent pictures for -”

“Fuck _you_ Dan, try and turn this into some kind of social media ‘moment’ and I’ll spend the next twenty-four hours with my eyes crossed just to fuck you over.”

“You’ll still look cute though,” he says, “You’re blonde, you can’t help it.”

He kisses her before she can respond, cupping her face in his hands and stroking her cheeks withhis thumbs.When he pulls back she doesn’t look in the least bit mollified.

“Are you staying so you can hit on some nurses?That’s what Andrew Meyer did, Selina told me.”

“I’m staying,” he says, leaning back and giving her a grin, “To make sure you aren’t tossed out by the security for swearing at the doctor when she sticks you with the epidural.”

Amy winces - presumably through another contraction - and says, “You can go, I’m not asking you to stick around, you can just-”

“Ames,” he says, trying to convey with his tone that he’s serious.“I’m not leaving you here when you’re scared out of your fucking mind, forget it.”

“I’m not _afraid_ of something that’s not even two feet long, don’t be fucking -”

“And if I was anyone else, I might even believe you, honey, but you’re talking to me.”

“ _If_ I let you stay, you have to actually _stay_ , you can’t fuck off because Sidney Purcell offers you a twenty percent cut or Danny Chung finally decides to let you suck him off.”

“Please,” Dan says, “I’m going to get material for messing with you for the next five years, I’m not going to miss an opportunity -”

“No. _No,_ ” Amy says, “I can’t - you can’t - this is fucking difficult enough without -”

She looks desperate and scared and maybe that’s why he grabs her hand.

“Ames, chill.I don’t give a shit if you spend the next thirty-six hours telling me your precise plan for castrating me, or the names of every superdelegate currently resident in New Mexico, Arizona and Delaware, I’m not going anywhere.”

Something… _wobbles_ in Amy’s face then, so he kisses her properly, taking his time with it, gathering her close.He wants her focused on _him_ , laughing at him, furious with him, fucking enamoured with him, whatever it takes to get her out of her own head so she’ll stop winding herself up and scaring herself in ways she’ll refuse to admit, but which will make everything so much harder.

Besides, his mini-me is about to emerge, and no way he’s missing the arrival of the next generation of the Egan political powerhouse.

* * *

 

It takes so much longer than he’d expected it to.

Not the actual birth, no that had been surprisingly quick, all told, no more than an hour or two from when the doctor said she could start pushing, but the build up.It was like Amy’s body had to put itself through a twelve hour punishment beating before her cervix would dilate to the required amount - which, for Dan, meant a lot of sitting around, some stale sandwiches from the commissary, and Amy telling him to stop pretending to hold her hand like a decent person.

It’s hard on her though, he can tell, having to lie in a bed and just _suffer_ , not able to swear at him or the nurse or the anaesthetist or Richard until the problem goes away.Her face is all sweaty, her hair is a mess, and as the contractions intensify she hangs onto his hand like she can squeeze an electoral college victory out of it.(When he sees the tears running down her cheeks he makes fun of her for them - which gets her good and riled up for half an hour or so, and who cares if it makes his stomach tremble seeing something break her like this, and not being able to joke her out of it or do anything to stop it).   (What  _really_ gets her going is when he tells he had sex with her because he'd heard it helped kick start labour - she apparently doesn't consider this to be a selfless act).

The epidural helps - a little - making the pain something she can just about manage, though she tries to make him leave the room when they insert the catheter.(She gives up on that when he points out - rather scornfully - that he’s spent more time looking at and thinking about her genital area than she probably has in her entire life).

He’s always had a certain begrudging respect for Amy, as his only equal, as one of the few recognisably rational people in politics, but it’s nothing compared to the way he feels watching her fight her way through labour, gritting her teeth and biting her lip and not giving up, not for one second, no matter how tired she is, or how stupid the doctors are, or how much he manages to irritate her… 

He’s not used to feeling admiration for other people.But Amy is the toughest shitkicker he’s ever seen, so tough he realises he’s been underestimating her ever since the first day they'd met. 

Their daughter arrives just before nine in the morning, red and angry and sticky, clutching at Amy’s skin and blinking her filmy eyes.She looks so pissed off - at being woken up, at being dragged into the world, at the poor quality of the hospital lighting - and the expression is so familiar, so _Amy_ … it’s like he already knows this kid. 

They take her away - to clean her, he supposes (which is good, because she is simply… _covered_ in he doesn’t want to know what) and Amy slumps back against her pillows, too worn out to speak.

And then… then things get scary very fucking fast.

The obstetrician stops to talk to Amy - concerned at how pale she is - and moments later he hears the word haemorrhage, and all of a sudden people start talking very fast over his head, and Amy’s asking him what’s going on, but he doesn’t get a chance to answer her, because they start wheeling her out of the room (and into an operating theatre, he assumes) and he has to let go of her hand.

Twenty minutes in, a nurse returns with the baby, and he has to stand there, holding her and wait.It’s the longest half hour of his life.

Since he isn’t Amy’s next of kin, the doctors don’t tell him anything, and it’s only when the operation or whatever it is finished that he finds out what had happened.

According to Amy at least, it’s nothing serious - the placenta had detached slightly too early or something, she’d lost too much blood, and the surgeon had gone in to stop the bleeding and also give her a blood transfusion.She pokes fun at him, saying he looks like someone set fire to all his skin products and made him watch, but she’s too weak to hold the baby (hold Amelie, he means to say) and it freaks him out.

His Amy is not pale and weak and still.His Amy is gleeful and furious and tense and in perpetual motion, he can’t…he can’t…

He wants to grab on to her and not let go, but instead he has to sit there and wait until she goes to sleep, pretending he doesn’t want to jump out of his skin.

He’d told her that he’d go to the hotel, collect all their things, maybe have a shower and grab some breakfast, and then be back before she was woke up.Which is - kind of - what he does.

Sure, he has to pull up on a side street, and take deep breaths for what feels like hours… but she doesn’t need to know about that.

He keeps his cool as best he can - telling the team about Amelie, sending his Mom a photo, calling Sophie to pass on the news, listening to the doctor talk Amy through the risk factors she needs to keep an eye for - but it can’t last.

He’d collected Amy the next morning, and driven all of them back to her place.She’s still paler than he’d like, still moving more slowly than he’d like, but she’s there, she’s _fine_.

Right up until she makes some joke about him perhaps being disappointed she didn’t die - that he’d lost the chance to dump Amelie on her parents and disappear.

“Please,” he says, trying to sound like himself, like he doesn’t give a fuck about either of them.“Your parents wouldn’t be getting anywhere _near_ my kid.”

Amy makes a face.“Oh, sure,” she says, mocking him.“You’d be such a dedicated father, you’d stick around even if I wasn’t here to make you.”

“Your parents raised _Sophie._ I mean, fine, they also raised you, but that is not an acceptable batting average for _my_ kid.And even if…even if I could -”

“I think you’d find a way to be your usual heartless self,” she says, with a twist in her mouth that’s almost like affection.

“Yeah,” he says, “I fucking I would, I would because you’d be… you’d be -”

“I’d be dead, Dan, gone entirely, you’d be free hook up with every politically useful - Brie Ramachan-whatever could stay over every night if you wanted.”

“Shut the fuck up, Amy, I swear to -”

He has to sit down then, because it’s too much.His hands are shaking and his legs feel weak, and it’s like it’s only just hit him, how close he came to…

Amy sounds irritated.“Are you actually pissed at me because I didn’t die in childbirth?”

It takes him a second to speak.“I had to _stand_ there,” he says, “And wait, while they worked on you, thinking…thinking it’d be just like fucking Nevada, if it went wrong, you’d be gone, I’d never get to see you…and it’d be exactly the same, it would be _my_ fault, again, because I didn’t fucking take care of you, because I fucked you without a condom and didn’t…didn’t make sure you were okay… and it’d be worse, because you would _never_ come back, you’d be lost, and I…I can’t fucking do that again.”

“You barely noticed I was gone,” Amy says, in this soft, sad-sounding voice.“You never even… all that shit happened, and I was engaged, and you never - you just - you didn’t call.”

He looks up at her, drinking her in, and he tries, he _tries_ , to sound cool and uncaring and like the man she knows.“That’s what fucking happens when you’re not - you think I’m heartless, Ames.That’s what I’d be, what I am without - if you’d - you _are_ my heart, the rest is just…”

“Vain, vapid and useless?”

He reaches up to touch her, because he can hear the smile in her voice.“Yeah.Shrivelled and cold and black and all that’s fine by me, but…I can’t take the thought of…”

Amy sits in his lap, plopping herself down so her side leans against his chest, and she can lay her head on his shoulder.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” she says, “I’m fine.”She takes his hand and presses it against her chest, so he can feel her heartbeat.“ _We_ are fine.You are stuck with us for the foreseeable future, like it or not.”

He buries his face in her shoulder, focusing on her warmth, on Amelie’s warmth, on the solid, strong _aliveness_ of both of them in his arms.

“You know,” he hears her say, still pressing his face into her skin, still focusing on her pulse and breath, “Someday soon, I’m going to tell everyone it’s all an act, you’re actually kind of sweet, deep, deep down.”

He laughs (and if it’s a watery laugh, Amy has the good taste not to comment on it).“Don’t be fooled, Ames,” he says, “This was all just a ruse so you’d let me grope one of your tits.”

“Right,” she says, “Because you’ve always had to try this hard for me to…”

“You do love it when I touch you.”

“You’re right,” she says, and kisses him, very, very gently (like she’s still a little afraid, even now).“I do.”

Amelie yawns and then wails, one little fist clenching and unclenching up by her face, and Dan, called back to reality, says, “So, are you ready to admit that I’m sticking around?”

“Sure,” Amy says.“We can tell people you’re my Worse Half.”

He kisses her properly for that (he appreciates a good comeback when he hears one), and when they’ve finished, all the unnameable fears that had seemed to drown him, soaking into every single space in his lungs, are gone, replaced by something light and fizzy, as though by kissing Amy he’s been drinking in champagne.

“Better?” she says, and he nods.(Thinking about how they’ll have to start making plans for where they’ll live soon, thinking moving will be hell with a newborn, thinking he doesn’t give a fuck so long as they’re both _with_ him).

“Good.Because my parents are coming over in a couple of hours… and they’re the first people we’ll be telling.”

Amy grins at him, teasing and taunting, and he says the only thing he can. 

“Your Mom’s going to be so disappointed.”

He doesn’t even mind when she hits him.


End file.
